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The Border Crisis Is Obama’s Mariel Boatlift
I’ve been on vacation the past week (the Monterey Bay Aquarium is lovely, by the way) but the few times I checked the headlines, the big story was the border crisis.
Since October, more than 52,000 unaccompanied children have attempted to cross into the U.S. These kids are fleeing violence and grinding poverty in their home countries, but many point to popular rumors that they’ll enjoy amnesty once they arrive. Obama’s self-serving and murky immigration policy, especially concerning young “DREAMers,” has borne its bitter fruit.
At the height of summer, children are streaming across vast deserts populated by dangerous cartels and human traffickers. The lucky ones who survive the journey have been tossed into overcrowded detention centers teeming with sickness and disease.
While many are calling the crisis Obama’s Katrina, a more apt political parallel is the Mariel Boatlift of 1980. In that fateful election year, President Jimmy Carter had pointed to his “reset” of relations with Fidel Castro’s Cuban government. The Democrat had softened America’s stance to the rogue regime, establishing an Interest Section in Havana and relaxing travel arrangements for Cuban Americans.
Castro repaid this kindness with an announcement that anyone who wanted to leave his island prison could do so. Hundreds of thousands of desperate Cubans boarded rickety rafts to make the dangerous trip to Florida. But the crafty dictator had also quietly opened the gates to his prisons and mental health facilities, encouraging the recently released to join the exodus.
When the first refugees arrived, the American public was welcoming. The sentiment soon turned sour as more and more dangerous and severely ill Cubans overran Florida’s meager relief capacity. Popular opinion quickly turned against the feckless Carter as he shipped wave after wave of immigrants to sites across the nation.
One of those destinations was Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, where one-term governor Bill Clinton was turned out of office after riots occurred. The Mariel Boatlift became a cautionary tale to politicians for the next two decades; a lesson seemingly forgotten by President Obama’s team.
Perhaps the worst political fact for Obama is that American sentiment is negative at the start of this new “boatlift.” Mobs are turning around the first buses to arrive; just imagine the reaction to as new illegal immigrants arrive in August, September and October.
Obama has made another disastrous miscalculation. And those who will pay most dearly are locked in disease-ridden detention centers or are lost and thirsty in the deserts of northern Mexico.
Published in General
The term “children,” like the words in our Constitution, seems highly malleable. Just as “the children” we are told are victims of gun violence are mainly young adult males (gang members under the age of 21), so it appears (from the few picture secreted out, against government dictat) are “the children” pouring across the border. They look to me to be disproportionately young male adults. Not exactly the image of grammar school kids suggested by the carefully-chosen word, “children.”
From a longer historical perspective, wouldn’t it be more precise to call it “The Children’s Crusade of Obama”? (Which is neat because you get that hot-button word “crusade” in there, too.)
But still, I agree with you.
Jimmy Carter didn’t conspire with the Castro government to import Cuba’s problems. Nor did his policies toward Cuba in any way break the law. And he didn’t lie to the American people about his intentions, or allow the press to mislead us about the true condition of the refugees.
Victor Davis Hanson can’t believe that Obama is going to a fund-raiser in Texas at the home of Robert Rodriguez (a director of violent movies) and is skipping any contact with the border disaster.
No, I can believe it.
Too bad that we are using GITMO for something else. See Operation Sea Signal (IMHO there are errors in the first paragraph– I was mobilized to augment the PT department at NHGB– we NEVER referred to them as refugees, for one).
Jon,
We need some honest reporting for this. You know on one screen Obama cracking jokes at his $32,000 a plate fund raiser and on the other screen a half dead dreamer being pulled out of the cactus.
Get ready for maximum hustle from the best propagandist ever to sneak into the White House.
Regards,
Jim
This situation is unreal.
“Miscalculation” implies conscious thought. The best that can be said is he ignored the evidence of this event as it built, if he even bothered to keep informed.
One thing is for sure, he won’t pay any price whatever.
I believe that the current definition of child is a person 26 and under. I was recently talking to a few children that were upset that they were turning 27 and was going to have to get their own insurance. Then there is Sergeant Bergdahl that the President describes as a child and he is 28 so maybe the age goes up even higher.
Foresight is not a strength with this Administration. Neither is planning.
One does not pull all of one’s troops out of a country in a dangerous region and then “consider options” when it all goes (predictably) sideways, for instance.
Every picture I have seen shows multiple teenage (or older) males. That is not what we are being told. Has anyone seen any pictures of children less than 10 or so?
At least we got Scarface out of the Mariel boat lift. What is Al Pacino up to these days anyway?