In response to a surge of Central American migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, President Donald Trump is threatening to close the Southern border unless Mexico stops the record number of asylum-seekers. Across the country, experts and interest groups opposed to a border shutdown have been weighing in about how that could affect people on both sides of the border:
Shutting down the border could actually increase illegal border crossings.Nearly half a million legal immigrants cross the border every day, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Many of them commute from Northern Mexican cities to work in the U.S. and could find themselves unemployed if they couldn’t cross the border.
“If anything, it would promote more poverty in Mexico, which would then turn into more pressure on immigration in the U.S.,” Gary Hufbauer, a nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told the New York Times.
Hundreds of students in border schools and universities wouldn’t be able to get to class. Administrators of El Paso’s Father Yermo Catholic School, which serves 190 students, say nearly 40% of their students cross the border every day and could fall behind if the border closed, according to El Paso TV station ABC 7.