Keywords

Trump, immigration, racism, border, border wall, illegal immigration

Abstract

The Trump Administration’s immigration policy, especially as geared towards Latin America, is currently ineffective. Its goal is to have zero tolerance for illegal immigration, yet it focuses most of its resources on building a wall to prevent illegal border crossings. Not only do illegal border crossers make up only 38% of illegal immigrants within the United States, the sections of the wall that already exist have shown to be little to no hindrance to those wishing to entire the United States illegally and thus pose an unwise expenditure of resources. President Trump himself has damaged relationships with Latin American leaders with his unique rhetoric. He has commonly referred to Hispanics as rapists, drug dealers, and criminals who hurt the US. In doing so has distanced the US from former allies. He unsuccessfully attempted to force Mexico to pay for the wall and frequently uses negative rhetoric to specifically target Mexican nationals.