By Caroline Houck | May 4, 2017:
The Trump’s administration’s approach to border security starts 1,500 miles south of the U.S.-Mexican border, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said Thursday.
In a 20-minute talk at the Atlantic Council, Kelly offered a distilled version of his approach. The former commander of U.S. Southern Command said he told President Donald Trump that getting a handle on undocumented immigration must begin long before a migrant reaches the United States.
“He agrees that it really starts down there,” Kelly said. “If we can improve the conditions, the lot in life of Hondurans, Guatemalans, Central Americans, we can do an awful lot to protect the southwest border.”
That means working with Latin American nations not just on migration, but on economic prosperity and development — a cause Kelly worked on while in uniform.
“You may ask why is a four-star Marine general, at the time, interested in economic development in three countries in the northern tier [of Central America]?” Kelly said. “The answer is because that’s a solution to a lot of things that plague them, that then cause them to leave their country and move north.”
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