The 'Optics' of Child Migrants

In the smog of national politics, one trope that politicians and the media rely on to cut through the miasma is the notion of a "Katrina Moment." Shorthand for a politically tone-deaf, perhaps even inhumane, response to a crisis, political opponents have invoked the phrase in the past to describe President Barack Obama's response from everything from the 2008 financial crisis to the 2010 Haitian earthquake.

According to some prominent observers, Obama's moment has arrived. In 2005, the media and the public reviled President George W. Bush for joking and playing air guitar while thousands of people fled a life-threatening situation with nowhere to go. Nine years later, some media suggest that President Obama is shooting pool, raising political contributions, and planning a luxury family vacation while tens of thousands of children have poured over the southern border, trying to escape from violence and poverty.

The decision to avoid the border is a philosophical one for the president. Despite being elected on a wave of lofty sentiment, the president has famously eschewed "optics" in favor of efficacy. The two are not opposite, however, but complementary.  The president's cool, cerebral approach may be an asset in many circumstances, but humanitarian crises, particularly ones as ideologically fraught as the one playing out on the southern border, demand a more comprehensive set of tactics. Now that the scourge of the drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) has contributed to a wave of unaccompanied children trying to cross the U.S. border, the White House has dismissed concerns about the president’s refusal to visit the places most affected. This is a mistake.

Optics have power, whether or not the president believes in them. He may be avoiding a visit because of a reluctance to play a role in political theater. However, as the president, he has a leading part; refusal to play it appears careless, not high-minded.  He is also leaving room for other groups to control the images coming from the border. The pictures released of elementary-school-aged children packed into makeshift shelters and covered in Red Cross blankets, or of the young boys and girls riding the migrant train called "the Beast," show a policy failure, one that, rightly or wrongly, reflects on the president. The Economist recently reported that Republican members of Congress have advocated sending the National Guard to police the border. The potential for images of armed U.S. soldiers confronting migrant children should be an alarming one for the administration.

The DTOs have long understood the power of images; bodies hung from highway overpasses and severed heads rolled onto nightclub floors are only two of the ways these organizations have sent messages to rivals and terrorized the public. As organizations like Los Zetas expand their reach into Central America, and as the devastating wars between rival DTOs cross the border, citizens of countries like Honduras and El Salvador believe themselves increasingly at risk. Their own governments have not been able to stem the violence and so, like generations before, families look to the United States as a land perhaps of opportunity but, more importantly, of safety.

The president's proposals to, among other things, strengthen security in Central American nations may be too little, too late. It is tempting to blame Congress for the debacle, but Obama has failed to use the full range of presidential power. Making a carefully crafted speech or making dismissive comments that the crisis "isn't theater," cannot mitigate the problem or break the immigration reform logjam. Instead, Obama might visit the shelters and acknowledge the heartbreaking dilemma exemplified by the fate of 7-year-old Kenneth Castellanos, tortured to death in Honduras by gang members. Expanding the terms of the immigration debate in this way would be politically powerful. Minimizing and avoiding the crisis allows the debate to be driven by other images and other agendas.