Immigrant advocate: Trump’s border plan will backfire

President Donald Trump is moving forward with plans to bring additional troops to the border in response to a caravan of migrants making its way through Mexico. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is expected to sign an order sending 800 or more troops to the border that would bolster National Guard forces already there.

Earlier this year, Mattis authorized funding for up to 4,000 national guard troops on the border, but only a little more than 2,000 have been used.

Federal law does prohibit the use of active duty service members for law enforcement inside the U.S. unless authorized by congress.

President Trump told a crowd at a rally Wisconsin on Wednesday that moves were underway for the military to be sent to the border. On Thursday, the President tweeted the migrants would be stopped and advised them to turn around and go back to their country.

Fernando Garcia, the Executive Director for the Border Network for Human Rights, does not believe that sending more troops to the border will solve the problem. “It’s unfortunate that the President is not looking at the root causes of why people are leaving their countries,” Garcia said.

Garcia said some of those causes are immigrants escaping violence and economic hardships. He believes, that with the midterm elections right around the corner, President Trump is once again playing on the fears of the country when it comes to immigrants.

“So he’s criminalizing immigrant families and children,” Garcia said. “So he can justify his position nationally, such as building the border wall or building the detention centers or even deploying the National Guard. That criminalization is going to backfire because that is not what America is about.”

But President Trump isn’t the only one talking tough about the migrants.

Texas U.S. Senator John Cornyn is in full support of the President’s response, Senator Cornyn saying, “We’re the most welcoming country in the world when it comes to legal immigration, but we expect people to follow the rules and to get in line and to do it the right way.”

Garcia believes the answer to the problem lies with understanding why the problems with immigration exists in the first place.

He says helping those countries will, in turn, keep their citizens from wanting to leave.

“And if we want to help, then let’s help to raise those standards,” Garcia said. “But we’re not doing that, instead we’re building walls and we’re just taking an enforcement approach only. Which is not going to work, it’s not going to stop anything.”