Donald Trump address: Heavy-handed tactic to fix his own crisis

Donald Trump has a right to try to exert greater control over the US border with Mexico but his claims today of a national security and humanitarian crisis are overblown.

The president’s use of a prime time Oval Office address to the nation deserves to be seen for what it is - a heavy-handed political tactic to try to resolve an embarrassing US government shutdown which is largely of the president’s making.

Trump’s argument in his nine minute broadcast is that there is a national security crisis at the Mexican border because a large number of asylum-seeking migrants, including criminals, potential terrorists and drug runners are illegally entering the US and threatening ordinary Americans.

He says existing US laws are inadequate to stem this influx and therefore the best solution is his border wall which was the centrepiece promise of his 2016 election win.

Both Trump and the Democrats - who say the wall is “immoral” - are using a blizzard of competing claims to try to prove their argument.

So let’s look at what we definitely know. Firstly the number of undocumented migrants apprehended for crossing into the US from Mexico in 2017 was just over 300,000, the lowest number in 46 years. Trump is correct to point out that these numbers rose in 2018 but the figures are still historically low.

Secondly, his claims that these migrants threaten national security because they will include criminals and potential terrorists are also overblown. Repeated studies in the US show that all migrants - including undocumented ones - are substantially less likely to commit any form of crime than native born Americans.

As far as potential terrorists are concerned the State Department issued a report last September finding “no credible evidence indicating that international terrorist groups have established bases in Mexico, worked with Mexican drug cartels or sent operatives via Mexico into the United States.”

Similarly, the opioid crisis that has ravaged America in recent years was not caused by an invasion of drugs across unguarded parts of the US-Mexico border. Rather it was sparked by the zealous and unethical promotion of addictive painkillers by pharmaceutical giants administered freely by careless American doctors. Those illegal drugs that are brought into the US are mostly smuggled through established checkpoints rather than through unattended borders.

So Trump cannot credibly claim that in the context of recent American history there is either a national security crisis or a humanitarian crisis along the Southern border.

But Trump was elected on a platform of improving border security and he makes a number of valid points in relation to this. Firstly he is right to say the US has poor immigration and border security laws - they are an astonishing hotchpotch of policies that have proved largely ineffective in preventing undocumented migrants from firstly entering the US and then staying illegally.

Trump’s argument that more needs to be done to police the border is a valid one. It is not surprising that he is pushing hard for his promised concept of a border wall even if the merits of this are hotly disputed. It was a core election promise for Trump and one which for which he fears his voting base will punish him if he does not deliver.

Yet a border wall from sea to shining sea is not only extremely expensive but would be only partially successful in slowing down asylum-seeking migrants, given that most of them present themselves at legal points of entry into the US.

Both sides of US politics have previously constructed walls and fencing over about one-third of the border so Democrats are on shaky ground to declare the concept of a wall “immoral” when they have previously acted themselves to extend physical barriers along the border. But Democrats make a persuasive argument that the money needed to build the remainder of the wall would be more effectively by directed into other aspects of border security.

Regardless of the merits of the wall, Trump should not have linked his desire for $5.6 billion to start its construction with a funding bill needed to avoid a government shutdown.

There is a chasm of difference between Trump and the Democrats over the concept of the border wall which will not be resolved quickly. It does no good to Americans, especially the 800,000 federal workers who are going without pay, for Trump to use his wall to stubbornly prolong what will be, within days, the longest government shutdown in US history.

Cameron Stewart is also US Contributor for Sky News Australia