I bet the head of Homeland Security is sitting in his office right about now saying, “How did we not think of this first?”

The leaders of the migrant caravan currently parked on the other side of the Mexican border have come up with a brilliant solution to the standoff that’s been going on for quite some time now. They’re tired of waiting to have their asylum claims heard and are unhappy with all of their comrades being arrested when they try to cross the border illegally. So roughly 100 of them have contacted our government with a counteroffer. Just give each of them $50K and they’ll go back home. (Washington Times)

A group of about 100 Central American migrants currently camped out in Tijuana, Mexico, have reportedly sent a letter to the U.S. government demanding entry or $50,000 each to go back to their home countries. The group, organized by Alfonso Guerrero Ulloa of Honduras, marched to the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana on Tuesday morning to present a letter of demands, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. “It may seem like a lot of money to you,” Mr. Ulloa said of the proposed $50,000 payout. “But it is a small sum compared to everything the United States has stolen from Honduras.”

The group has generously given us 72 hours to respond and make the deal. What happens if we don’t answer within the allotted time? They don’t know, but they’ll think of something.

Hey, let’s give credit where credit is due. It’s a bold plan. Of course, it’s also preposterous. First of all, what exactly has the United States “stolen” from Honduras? (This is assuming they had anything worth stealing.) And if we were going to pay these sorts of reparations for our supposed transgressions against that nation, we’d be giving the money to their government, not to a band of individuals threatening to illegally enter our country.

Just gaming this out to its illogical conclusion, we could spend five million dollars and have 100 of the migrants go back home. (I’m not sure, but I think $50K makes you a millionaire in Honduras. The average annual income there is roughly $580 U.S.) But when the entirety of the caravan gets here, that will be roughly 6,000 people. So I assume they will all turn around and go home for the bargain basement price of… $300M.

You know, if we had that sort of petty cash lying around we could probably build the wall from the beach near Tijuana well past all the authorized entry points in that region. And we wouldn’t have to give the migrants a dime.

In any event, this clearly constitutes a threat of some sort. Perhaps a blackmail attempt. If they all signed off on that letter I would suggest sending the list of names down to the border and putting them on the “No Amnesty For You” list. I’m assuming we have one of those, anyway.