Homeland Security chief says ‘confusion’ spurred by the Trump administration is stemming illegal immigration
Secretary of Department of Homeland Security John Kelly appeared on “Meet the Press” and talked with Chuck Todd on immigration.
As the Los Angeles Times reports, tough rhetoric from the Trump administration has injected “confusion” into those who are considering crossing illegally into the United States and made them abandon their travel plans, Kelly said.
Kelly said President Trump’s talk and actions have helped push illegal border crossings from Mexico to a low. (In fact, illegal migration from Mexico has been declining for many years.). “The attention being paid to the border certainly has injected into those people … enough confusion in their minds,” Kelly said. “The very, very, very good news is, for a lot of different reasons, the number of illegal aliens that are moving up from the south has dropped off precipitously.”
“The laws on the books are pretty straightforward: If you’re here illegally, you should leave or you should be deported, put through the system,” Kelly said.
Kelly also admitted that visa overstays were a “big problem.”
It just may be that the climate of fear that the Trump administration has created in the immigrant community has had an impact on immigration. The climate certainly has unsettled == some might say terrorized — the immigrant community. We will see what happens over time, including whether the undocumented population changes and whether the drop in border apprehensions continues.
The current climate in the United States seems to have reduced legal migration, including tourism, from Mexico to the United States.
Tourism Economics, a global research firm, estimates that lost visits from Mexico to the U.S. this year will total 1.8 million — a 7% drop from the previous year — with direct economic loss of $1.1 billion.
The firm estimates that Mexico-to-U.S. travel will diminish even further in 2018, with 2.6 million lost visits and direct economic losses totaling $1.6 billion.
KJ