1. Has anyone ever run numbers on what we pay to prevent people from entering the US from our southern border including all legal costs? Economists could analyze the impact on irregular immigration if the money is paid directly to underemployed workers in their home counties.
2. My suspicion is that it would greatly reduce if not end the flood of economic refugees. The money could go directly to the individuals not to the governments that are generally corrupt. It would also give the US a wedge to enforce anticorruption. We would become the paymaster.
3. The majority of the people escaping the Northern Triangle countries are reported to be indigenous people who are being driven off their land by armed gangs that have moved from cities to exploit the regions where the indigenous people live. I'm not entirely clear that the
4. ruling elite are simply unable to provide security or are unwilling knowing that the regions will be depopulated and then exploited. If the result of the these crimes is a flood of refugees on our border then US policy should be focused on stopping the causes of
5. the irregular migration, not simply responding to it as if it were inevitable. If armed gangs are the cause, elimination of the gangs is likely the solution. The options would likely be a partnership with the government and its military or training and arming the indigenous
6. people to fend for themselves. If the ruling elite are given those two options, they and the military may consider working with the US as an offer they can't refuse.
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