I was listening to the Center for Immigration Studies podcast on what they call Gatekeeper Countries. Supposedly, some European nations are trying to put pressure on Turkey to keep the flows of migrants from reaching Western Europe.

This week's podcast episode is a re-release of a recent panel entitled "Gatekeeper Countries: Key to Stopping Illegal Immigration.https://t.co/2I0kU2vWmK

— Center for Immigration Studies (@CIS_org) May 18, 2023

As you can see, so far, it’s not working. However, the regular Turkish people are sick of the masses of Syrians and others transiting through their nation.

Back when I was on the southern border, we would often catch illegal aliens from countries like El Salvador and Guatemala who would claim to be Mexican. They figured if they fooled us, they would get sent back to Mexico and get to try to cross the border again. If they were found to be “Other Than Mexican” aka an OTM, then they were sent to immigration camp (really a detention facility) and held there to await to fly them back home. (In 2002, VDARE.com reported that Border Patrol/INS would ask them if they knew the words to Mexicanos, al grito de guerra, the Mexican National Anthem—”the INS’ secret pass/fail weapon for catching OTMs.”)

This was tremendously costly and time consuming to the U.S. government. If the alien did not have a passport, then they had to get a travel document to be repatriated back home. A lot of countries refused to take back their illegal aliens claiming that they couldn’t prove which country they were really from.

Later on, during the Trump administration, the president instituted the Migrant Protection Prototocals (MPP), the formal name for the Remain in Mexico policy. During this policy, Mexican officials refused to take back anyone who could not speak Spanish. That meant a lot of Brazilians who could actually understand Spanish fairly well, suddenly couldn’t remember a word of Spanish.

Of course, it meant that all the Chinese, Africans, Pakistanis etc. were allowed to enter the U.S. Also, this also allowed a lot of indigenous people from countries like Nicaragua to suddenly claim not to speak Spanish either. On top of it, the Mexican authorities refused to take back anyone who was sick or pregnant.

One of my colleagues suggested a plan he called “Mexico One.” Basically, it meant that whatever your country of birth, if you crossed into the U.S. from Mexico, you went back to Mexico. That would save the government a lot of time and money.

At the beginning of my career, I can recall being ordered down to the local port of entry to pick up an illegal alien the Mexican authorities were turning back over to us. I believe the alien was from El Salvador, and he had lied saying that he was Mexican to be sent back to Mexico. The Mexican Customs officials heard his accent, and beat out of him his true country of origin, then called us to pick him up because he wasn’t a Mexican. I can remember wondering why we were acquiescing to Mexican demands, considering Mexico had no problem letting him in knowing he was going to try to cross into the U.S. illegally.

During Eisenhower’s Operation Wetback, the Mexican authorities initially cooperated with the U.S. government in taking back their citizens. The Mexican illegals were often shipped by boat down to southern Mexico. If we want Mexico to help us out again, we are going to have to put a lot of pressure on them to do it. That will only happen under a Republican administration and it’s not guaranteed even then.