A third-grader with a more or less straight ruler, a crayon, and a map could recognize that the U.S. Executive and its press allies are barking up the wrong tree in trying to stem  the refugees at the U.S.-Mexico  border.

The correct interdiction-turnaround border is about a thousand miles south, between Mexico and Guatemala.  The third-grader would simply draw a line from the Caribbean/Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.  Nobody else from the three Northern Tier Honduran/El Salvador/Guatemala countries can cross. Nobody else from South America, Asia, or Africa?  Yep.  They're in the northward flow through Guatemala.

One of the "fers" Obama assigned his gofer V.P. Biden was the Alliance for Progress, a $4- to 5-billion job-creation stay-at-home program in the Northern Triangle.  The three N.T. countries sport seven presidents convicted (sums in the hundreds of million dollars), in jail, or under suspicion of corruption.  It will take a brave or illiterate congressperson to send more green via that turnpike.  All three have dismal scores under the 180-nation Corruption Perception Index.

I've been living in Guatemala since the 1960s — so long that I'm probably the dean of journalists there, an unenviable distinction.  I've published a newspaper, written op-eds, and hosted a popular radio show, Good Morning Guatemala.  I've spent time in the refugee camps across the border in Mexico, been offered the Chinese discount for being smuggled into the U.S., and talked with scores of deportees and wannabe former or would-be illegal northbound refugees.

It has never been like this.

Carlisle Johnson: Emisoras Unidas (ABC Radio affiliate), Canal Antigua TV, VOA (radio and TV), American Thinker,  BBC4, El Periódico, Cincinnati Enquirer, Guatemala Post, Atlantic, Washington Times.  Golden Circle award and numerous local recognitions.

Image via Pxhere.