( CNN ) -- Texas Gov . Rick Perry has decided to send 1,000 National Guard troops to `` secure '' the U.S.-Mexico border . At least 52,000 children have arrived unaccompanied to the United States since October , most coming from Guatemala , Honduras and El Salvador . They have been greeted by protests in border regions across the United States . But military might has n't ever and wo n't solve the problem ; it is much broader than that . What has been glaringly absent from discussion of this humanitarian crisis is any attempt to address its underlying causes , which rest fundamentally in drug policy reform . At its core is the longstanding drug war the United States has waged in Central and South America . In the early years of the drug war , U.S. policy was aimed at curtailing the rise of socialism and communism as well as stopping the production of narcotics in this region . The United States has used military intervention , crop dusting and possible political subversion in order to achieve these policy objectives . More recently , the United States implemented a militarization campaign , providing funding to law enforcement officials in Latin American countries to combat narco-trafficking . This policy destabilized major regions of Central America , increasing murder rates and corrupting any viable political or economic opportunities to bring about change . Corruption in government and law enforcement results in an environment of extreme violence , as gangs of criminals battle for control across borders . Parents in these countries are faced with deciding whether to send their children on the treacherous journey to America , where they have at least a possibility of safety and a better life . We can not just summarily send these children back to the desperate situations they escaped . Two Texas lawmakers are trying to do just that , quickly , by introducing legislation to amend the 2008 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act . The bill , which has been met with protests , would speed up the deportation process and send these 52,000 children back to the violent environments they escaped . Sen. John Cornyn and Rep. Henry Cuellar even have the audacity to call it the HUMANE Act , for `` Helping Unaccompanied Minors and Alleviating a National Emergency . '' Maryland Gov . Martin O'Malley was right when he recently said : `` It is contrary to everything we stand for as a people to try to summarily send children back to death . . . in a place where drug gangs are the greatest threat to stability , rule of law and democratic institutions in this hemisphere . '' Although the arrest of a drug lord or corrupt government officials may catch our attention , we fail to sufficiently consider those throughout Latin America who have fallen victim to violence related to the drug war . So many have been murdered , have disappeared or have been forced to leave their homes in search of refuge . In 2010 , nearly 50,000 Latinos were incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses and , according to a recently released TRAC report , nearly one-quarter of a million people were deported for nonviolent drug offenses in just the past six years . Nearly 10,000 were deported in 2013 for marijuana-related offenses . Prohibition and the failed drug war has led to more than 60,000 deaths in Mexico from 2006 to 2012 . As the region that has most suffered the brunt of the war on drugs , it is no surprise that the loudest political voices calling for reform are coming from Latin America . Leaders within Latin American countries have been on the record in recent years calling for this change . In a groundbreaking report released in 2011 by the Global Commission on Drug Policy , three former Latin American presidents -- Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil , CÃ©sar Gaviria of Colombia , and Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico -- and a host of other notable global figures , such as Kofi Annan , Richard Branson and Paul Volcker , called for `` breaking the taboo '' on discussing alternatives to drug prohibition and encouraging `` experimentation by governments with models of legal regulation of drugs . '' Now , sitting presidents Juan Manuel Santos in Colombia , Otto Perez Molina in Guatemala , and JosÃ© Mujica in Uruguay have echoed these demands for reform . In May , the Organization of American States released a report , commissioned by the presidents of the hemisphere , which included marijuana legalization as a probable policy for the near future . It is no doubt that as the war on drugs grinds on in Latin America , women and children will continue to seek refuge from the violence . As the United States considers options on how to deal with its new influx of thousands of young refugees , it must strongly reconsider the drug war policies that put us here in the first place .
Texas Sen . Perry wants to send 1,000 National Guard troops to ` ` secure '' the border . Parents : To fix the crisis you must address its cause : the war on drugs . They say lawlessness threatens children 's safety at home so they flee to safety . Writers : U.S. can not send children back to school and must reconsider its drug policy .