The Americas need to come together in a big way to deal with illegal immigration issues.

The US Border Crisis has been decades in the making, but it is the immediate welfare of tens of thousands of children being addressed by competing legislative efforts.  Unfortunately, neither approach actually attempts to address the causes of the crisis.  In other words, all attempts by Democrats and Republicans involve spending various amounts of taxpayer dollars to simply keep deporting desperate people back to communities in crisis.

In many respects, the brutal criminal violence throughout the hemisphere over the past few years has gone under addressed by the American People, even though its nature and scope make it just as serious as globalized terrorism.  Although there was no event equivalent event to the September 11th terrorist attacks or the mortgage meltdown, the threat of criminal syndicates in the Americas requires the same magnitude of response as globalized terrorism and the Great Recession.  Even today, there is no “9/11 Commission” or massive effort to coordinate and scale up efforts to combat criminal violence in the Americas.

At the same time, it is important to recognize the G7 countries meet, at least, once a year with great fanfare in order to discuss the health of the global economy.  There is no equivalent for the regional economy of the Americas.  This is despite the fact that this hemisphere is home to global economic powers the United States, Canada, and Brazil.  Recognizing European global economic powers have the EU, the Americas have nothing of such significance.  Consequently, the US needs to take the lead in addressing the driving forces behind illegal immigration, which means leading our hemisphere by bringing all nations of the Americas together to deal with those issues in a big way.