Former Reagan secretary of state says U.S. should work to end violence driving migrants to U.S. [View all]

[DonViejo]

BY JOHN BOWDEN - 11/24/18 07:48 PM EST

Former President Ronald Reagan's secretary of state George Shultz says the Trump administration should take action to relieve the conditions in Central America driving migrants to the U.S. rather than demonizing the migrants themselves.

In an op-ed for The Washington Post, Shultz, along with former Mexican Treasury Secretary Pedro Aspe, wrote that policy actions such as decriminalizing drug use in the United States would reduce drug cartel-related violence in countries such as Honduras and El Salvador, where many are forced to leave their homelands for the U.S. every year.

"The United States would do well to study the example of Portugal, which has found success by taking a demand-oriented approach to drug control," Shultz writes, referring to Portugal's 2001 decriminalization of drug use.

"If the United States were to adopt this approach, people would increasingly go to free, well-vetted drug treatment centers, and the illegal drug market in this country would gradually disappear, as would profits going south to the drug lords," he continues.

Drug-related violence, Shultz goes on to say, is the main factor driving Central American migration to the U.S., and should be confronted by stripping cartel lords of their finances and markets in the U.S.

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https://thehill.com/policy/international/418096-former-reagan-secretary-of-state-says-us-should-work-to-end-violence