Beto O’Rourke Calls on US to Pay Latin American Countries to Curb Migration

The Democratic presidential candidate implied migrants will stop coming to the US’ southern border if Washington pours enough money into their countries of origin.

Former congressman and current Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke has come up with an unexpected solution to the migration problem: the US must pour taxpayer money into countries where migrants originate from — predominantly the "Northern Triangle" of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras — to make their lives cozy enough to dissuade them from going to the United States.

"We can try to address these problems at the US-Mexico border with walls or open arms, or we can address them in the countries of origin before they ever become a problem, and that's what I want to do", O'Rourke said in an interview with CNN set to air Saturday.

"What we need is someone who will… invest in the smart decisions and policies like investing in Central America to stop the outflow before it even begins", he said.

“Donald Trump is the arsonist who gets the credit for putting out the fire,” @BetoORourke tells @DavidAxelrod on cutting aid to Central American countries. “We need someone that will not play games with people’s lives.” #AxeFiles airs Saturday at 7 p.m. ET on CNN. pic.twitter.com/Le1UeRsvpi

— CNN (@CNN) 12 апреля 2019 г.

​O'Rourke's proposed policy of investment is a 180-degree turn from US President Donald Trump's "America First" policy, which aims to bring money, big companies and jobs back to the US.

The Democratic candidate blasted Trump for cutting foreign aid to the Northern Triangle countries, where most of the undocumented immigrants who travel to the US borders in organised caravans originate. He called Trump an "arsonist who gets credit for putting out the fire", accusing the president of orchestrating migrant waves by cutting foreign aid and then getting credit for stopping them. O'Rourke seems to be ignoring the fact that Trump's decision to cut foreign aid was made after several caravans of thousands of migrants reached the southern US border, forcing border patrol agents to scramble to detain undocumented migrants who crossed the border by the hundreds.

In March 2018, the first caravan of about 700 migrants, predominantly Hondurans, set off from Mexico's southern border, quickly growing to 1,200 people. Throughout the year, numerous similar caravans followed, with Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala determined to be the travellers' main countries of origin. The Trump administration has repeatedly called on the three countries to curb the migration influx, to no avail.