Soldiers on the border are an unnecessary response to a non-existent threat.

The military is not needed to protect the United States from mothers, children, and people escaping violence and persecution. Using troops and guns to prevent people from lawfully seeking asylum is anathema to American values.

The deployment will also cost approximately $72 million in taxpayer funds, at the very least.  These funds would be better allocated to NGOs, which are positioned to provide visible assistance to migrants in need.

NGOs and nonprofits alike are already committed to the border to assist asylum seekers. Despite their benevolent intentions, they simply do not have the resources to keep pace with the influx of migrants. The reallocation of $72 million would provide humanitarian aid and legal services, a better use of taxpayer dollars.

The humanitarian aid would be for those in overcrowded and under-resourced detention centers and for new arrivals. Legal aid would alleviate the backlog of asylum applications for individuals and families currently in detention centers.

The military deployment is a political stunt.

According to the most recent White House “Cabinet order,” U.S. Armed Forces are authorized to detain or use lethal force against migrants in order to prevent them from crossing the border. However, according to Secretary of Defense James Mattis, troops have not been issued firearms, nor do they have the necessary authority under the law to carry out law enforcement responsibilities.

The order itself is a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. Military troops cannot detain migrants, they cannot stop asylum seekers, and they cannot seize any drugs that could potentially be carried across the border. All they can do is add to the barbed wire fencing and provide emergency medical assistance. Troop deployments don’t allow for the effective protection of the perceived threat, rather, the primary purpose of the troop presence is to deter the migrants from attempting to enter the United States.

Persecuted peoples risk drug cartels, disease, and death on their journey to the border. For them to arrive and be denied the opportunity to enter the U.S. and request asylum is both illegal and detrimental to the moral authority of the United States. As a Federal District Court just upheld, these people are legally allowed to enter the country and request asylum. It is illegal to keep them out of the country by deterrence or force.

The United States prides itself on being an example for the world. Border policy should not be an exception. In times of increasing global cooperation and interconnectivity, the U.S. cannot be a nation that shuts its doors to those in need. The United States has moral and international legal obligation to permit asylum seekers to enter the country and request asylum. It cannot ask other countries to meet such responsibilities if it refuses do so itself.

Some see this caravan, and migrants in general, as a threat to the very existence of the United States. They claim that militarizing the border is the exact step the U.S. needs to protect citizens at home. The Trump Administration employs this prejudiced rhetoric, placing travel bans on citizens from the Middle East and now denying entry for citizens from Central America.

From the administration’s perspective, the migrants from Central and South America do pose a threat. This threat is not based on fact, only xenophobia. It is not deserving of a $72 million deployment of over 5,900 troops.

Not only is the troop deployment an improper use of military resources, it is harmful to the United States’ national security interests. The U.S. military is already over-committed and under-resourced. There are currently fewer troops in Syria than there are at the border. Domestic situations do not require such a large scale troop deployment, especially against a fabricated national security threat. Deploying troops to the border impairs existing deployments around the world.

The National Guard is already stationed at the border with over 2,000 troops, and significantly more resources. Using military resources at the border instead of supporting other, higher-priority overseas military operations is a logistical miscalculation on the part of the White House.

The Border Battle Against Asylum-Seekers was originally published on Global Security Review.

Demonstrations first erupted on April 16 after the government announced social security reforms that would raise costs for retirees and workers. When police cracked down on protesters, they unintentionally fanned the flames. By April 20, tens of thousands of Nicaraguans were taking to the streets daily to protest in cities and towns nationwide.

Ortega, a former leftist revolutionary, has moved to the right since his 2006 election. He has also centralized his power, controlling the media, restricting opposition and giving government jobs to family and friends. His wife, Rosario Murillo, was Ortega’s running mate in 2016 and is now Nicaragua’s vice president.

In 2014, Ortega abolished term limits for the presidency, with the blessing of a National Assembly stacked with loyalists.

As scholars of social conflict and regime change in Latin America, we know that authoritarian governments’ survival depends on controlling institutions and maintaining alliances with powerful forces like the military, the Church and the elite class. Nicaragua’s protest movement has imperiled Ortega’s carefully constructed coalition – perhaps fatally.

Ortega then and now

Ortega first came to power in 1979 after Nicaragua’s Sandinista revolution overthrew dictator Anastasio Somoza.

Back then, Ortega’s rise hinged on creating a broad coalition. With the support of traditional opposition parties, many business elites, students, and peasants, his Sandinista National Liberation Front moved from marginal guerrilla group to ruling party.

The Sandinista government stayed in power for 10 years, creating a socialist economy, undertaking land reform and wealth redistribution.

Ortega returned to power by winning elections in 2006 – this time with a new, right-leaning platform that espoused traditional Christian values and pro-business economic policies.

Ortega had rocky relations with the Catholic Church during the revolution. But since 2006 he has embraced both Catholic bishops and evangelical groups. Beyond religious rhetoric, he has maintained Nicaragua’s abortion ban and sought to control LGBTQ activism.

The business elite likewise struck a new bargain with Ortega when he was elected in 2006. In the 1980s, Ortega worked to seize private enterprises and redistribute farmland. Now, he works with business leaders to set Nicaragua’s economic policy and labor conditions. In turn, they have supported his regime.

For a while, this coalition held. Until recently, Ortega’s opposition was fragmented and weak. Since 2007, there have been few protests, which were usually met with violent repression.

Fractured coalition

Ortega’s unilateral announcement of the social security reforms on April 16 – a decision he made without consulting Nicaragua’s business community – ruptured the business side of this pact.

By April 20, the major business associations were calling on workers to protest the reforms.

Police repression and the perceived injustice of the social security reforms drove the Church away from Ortega, too. First, Managua Bishop Silvio Baéz said that the protesters’ cause was “just” and offered the Cathedral in Managua as a refuge for student protesters. Soon, the bishop was publicly calling for negotiation and “democratization” in Nicaragua.

Ortega’s coalition has crumbled. In contrast to the spontaneous protests, this government is so unpopular that it has to bus supporters into Managua to stage pro-regime counterdemonstrations.

The military

Suddenly, Nicaragua seems to be on the brink of momentous change. What happens next depends heavily on Nicaragua’s security forces.

Numerous studies confirm that autocratic leaders can survive mass protest movements only if police and the military are willing to continually repress protesters.

In neighboring Honduras, the right-wing president Juan Orlando Hernández, for example, has stayed in power through deadly demonstrations against his government largely because security forces have suppressed protests.

When the armed forces refuse orders, on the other hand, dictators can fall. The 2011 Tahrir Square protests toppled Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak within weeks, once the military abandoned his regime.

Since 2007, Ortega has worked hard to make Nicaragua’s security forces personally loyal to him. He has offered military and police officers promotions, political positions and business opportunities.

These efforts partially succeeded. The police have actively stifled dissent in Nicaragua, beating and arresting protesters. They also cooperate with the Sandinista youth wing as a kind of paramilitary force.

As April’s protests expanded, Ortega appeared on television flanked by police commissioner Aminta Granera and military commander General Julio César Áviles, demonstrating that he would use military force to stay in power if necessary.

But neither the police nor soldiers seem keen to shed more blood. On April 20, the military sent troops to guard government buildings – but not to confront protesters themselves.

Around April 20, some police were actually arrested for refusing orders to crack down on protests.

Most significantly, on April 21, as massive protests roiled central Managua, police violence suddenly and completely ceased – a sign that police commissioner Granera issued an order to stand down. She was soon reported to resign.

Legacy of the revolution

This resistance to violence is not surprising given the history of Nicaragua’s security forces.

During the 1979 revolution, President Somoza’s National Guard met the Sandinistas’ popular uprising with murderous repression. It was Sandinista troops who helped sweep away the dictator and his predatory security apparatus.

Over time, these revolutionary forces took on a professional, nonpartisan and apolitical identity. Today, Nicaragua’s police and the military are considered among the most effective in Central America.

Somoza’s legacy looms large in Nicaragua. In our assessment, today’s military is far more likely countenance Ortega’s ouster than to murder Nicaraguan citizens in his defense.

Repression may be off the table, but Ortega is a wily politician. To stay in office peacefully, he’ll have to negotiate his way back into the good graces of the Catholic Church and business leaders. He has dominated Nicaragua’s political life and consolidated so much power for so long, however, that he could offer numerous concessions without losing full control.

Nicaragua protests threaten an authoritarian regime that looked like it might never fall was originally published on Global Security Review.