Sending military to confront migrants at border not the best option

When officials from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement detained three men from a restaurant in Pikeville last year, most of us here were surprised. Along with my family, I had eaten there many times and never had any problems. The food and service were always great.

But the raid underscored how deeply the immigration issue is felt in America, even here in the Appalachian mountains over a thousand miles from the border with Mexico.

The large caravan of refugees currently in Mexico and potentially heading towards our border are not ISIS or al-Qaida, nor are they armed. They are not an invading army. But they do pose a security risk to our border, and to claim otherwise is to simply ignore the facts.

Yet, the U.S, military should be viewed as a last resort, not the best option for dealing with the migrant caravan. The military is our must trusted institution, but not everything is a nail, so we need more tools at our disposal than just a big hammer. Diplomacy and cooperation with Mexico can solve this problem more quickly and effectively than the military

I was stationed near the U.S.-Mexico border in San Angelo, Texas, and as active duty military personnel we were routinely ordered not to cross the border when we were off duty due to the threat of violent crimes. If a place is too dangerous for military personnel to go, little wonder civilians don’t want to stay there.

The borderlands in south Texas are immense, remote and rugged terrain. Driving to Laughlin Air Force Base from San Angelo once, I remember not seeing another car, house, building or being able to get a single station on the radio for miles. I watched the radio dial cycling in an endless loop. Forget about cell phone service. Empty creek beds along the road had colorful names like Hackberry Draw but not a drop of water.

Guarding a border is a labor-intensive and difficult a job. In Iraq we had half a million troops in country and still could not prevent terrorists from crossing the Syrian-Iraqi border, which is much shorter than the U.S.-Mexico border.

We need to address the root causes of the refugee crisis coming from our Latin American neighbors. Violence and instability have made many places there unlivable, which is why people are fleeing. Nobody treks 2,000 miles through jungles and deserts for a free visit to the ER. It is in the interest of our national security to leverage our diplomatic and economic resources to try to alleviate the crisis to our south.

For the immediate situation, the U.S, military can act as the final safety net should all other options fail. We have a moral obligation to try to prevent a worst case scenario, which would put American military personnel in a position to potentially use armed force against refugees.

My concern here is not about “optics.” It’s about the young soldiers who have to look through their gun sights at a crowd of refugees, and live for the rest of their lives with any decision to pull the trigger. The killing of civilians, even by accident, has a devastating effect on our military members.

We owe it to our military not to put them in that position if we can avoid it. Getting as many of the migrant caravan as possible to stay in Mexico is a better alternative, and we should use our diplomatic leverage, along with economic incentives, to facilitate that outcome. That should be our primary course of action, not the use of military force.

This story was originally published October 25, 2018 at 7:49 PM.