Delusional Rumour Driving Some Migrants in Mexico to Reach US Border

From Todd Bensman of the Center for Immigration Studies as published by The Daily Mail

US law enforcement sources tell me the rumour is patently absurd

There were no signs of human life, just railroad tracks and a rough dirt road, six miles west of a small Mexican mountain town.

But this was definitely the place described to me.

On a recent trip to Mexico City’s sprawling migrant encampments, I heard again and again stories about groups of immigrants who were breaking away from these urban bases and disappearing into the vast highland wilderness outside the city.

Now, I’d gone to find them.

As my translator and I picked our way through the mountain landscape dotted with pines, prickly pear cacti and brambles 40 miles northeast of Mexico City, the high desert looked empty.

Then we spotted someone watching us from behind a cluster of rocks.

‘Not immigration!’ I shouted in Spanish. ‘Friendly journalists. Please show yourselves.’

With that, some two dozen bleary-eyed men, women and children emerged from their hidey holes.

Migrants rush the US border before Trump’s inauguration

They were in rough condition, having just weathered a night on bare ground, too frightened of roaming Mexican immigration officers to build fires and too cold to sleep.

They’d brought water jugs but no food, blankets or even the most rudimentary camping gear. All of them repeatedly begged me for something to eat. Unfortunately, I hadn’t brought anything.

‘We haven’t eaten since yesterday. We don’t have that much money,’ a Venezuelan man named Jesus told me.

Another young Venezuelan, who lost a leg in a motorcycle accident back home, navigated the rough terrain on crutches, an empty pant leg flapping wildly. They told me that other groups were camped in the area.

Why?

Most of the migrants I met in Mexico City said they were giving up on their plans to sneak into America. As I reported last week, these people were either returning to their home countries or settling in Mexico.

Clearly, threats from the incoming Trump administration to close the border and deport all illegals are having the desired deterrent effect.

Other migrants said they’d make up their minds before the President-elect’s January 20 inauguration, to see if the Biden administration would approve their applications for ‘humanitarian parole’.

Using the Biden-created ‘CBP One’ mobile app to lodge such claims, some 771,000 migrants have entered into the US since January 2023. Trump has said he’ll end the program on Day One.

But there is a contingent of migrants who are refusing to be turned away. These are the ones escaping from urban encampments into the woods, in a race against time to illegally cross the border before Trump’s swearing-in.

They’d brought water jugs but no food, blankets or even the most rudimentary camping gear. All of them repeatedly begged me for something to eat. Unfortunately, I hadn’t brought anything.

It’s hard not to conclude that these migrants were drawn here, in large part, by President Biden’s disastrous immigration policies, resulting in more than 10 million migrants entering the US during his term. The message that has been sent to the world the past four years is that, if you make it to the border, you’ll likely find a way to cross.

And indeed, as I soon learned, this group had been convinced by a particularly delusional rumor sweeping Mexico City’s migrant camps.

It’s their firm belief that on Wednesday, December 18, the US and Mexican governments are going to withdraw all troops and border guards, giving tens of thousands of migrants one last chance to cross the border before the coming Trump crackdown.

December 18 is ‘International Migrants Day’, declared by the United Nations in 2000, as a time to recognize the plight of migrants worldwide.

‘On International Migrant’s Day, they’re going to open the border gates,’ a young Ecuadorian man named Jason confidently explained to me.

Six men sitting around him nodded in agreement.

My US law enforcement sources tell me this is patently absurd, suggesting that Mexican cartels had concocted the rumor as a way to wring migrants for cash one last time before the era of Biden’s mass migration ends.

Nonetheless, I embedded myself for the day with this group of true believers – hailing from Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guatemala and Honduras – as they waited at a junction in the middle of the desert, where trains are known to stop for five to 10 minutes as the tracks are switched.

The migrants’ plan was to hitch a ride on top of a freight train for a dangerous three or four-day trip north. The ultimate destination: The border crossing at Eagle Pass, Texas.

Word was the next train was due at noon.

There were three mothers with six young children among the group of 25; only one of the kids was accompanied by a father.

The rest were single young men in their 20s, including several who admitted they’d illegally crossed the border before and made their way to Denver and Houston, only to be deported after serving time for crimes.

One of these men refused to allow me to record him on either audio or video. Another told me he had been arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol during his time in Denver.

Everyone was on edge – and for good reason.

Trump has threatened Mexico’s new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, with 25 percent trade tariffs if she does not do what she can to halt illegal migration.

In response, she has enhanced tough nationwide immigration enforcement operations. Mexican National Guard and immigration officers are patrolling rail lines with orders to capture every immigrant and ship them a thousand miles south to Mexican cities on the border with Guatemala.

The migrants fear that and more.

‘Mexican immigration takes your money away, whatever you have, they take it away,’ said Alexander, a 30-something Colombian. ‘We’re running away from them.’

Two young men anointed themselves lookouts to warn the others when strange vehicles approached. They asked me to hide my rental car in the brush.

As we waited for the noon train, a motorbike carrying a man and a woman pulled up on the dirt road running parallel to the train tracks.

‘Immigration knows you are all here,’ the man warned in Spanish. ‘They’ll take all of your cell phones and money and send you to Tapachula. Hide in the landfill.’

At this, the entire group bolted over the tracks to a mammoth fenced-off garbage dump and squeezed through holes in the chain link. The pile stunk terribly. In the refuse, the children found a feral dog nursing newborn puppies in a hole she’d dug.

Here we waited for several hours until a train horn sounded in the distance. Everyone rushed back through the fence, but were quickly disappointed. This train wasn’t going to work. The cars were cylindrical oil tanks – far too hazardous to ride on top of.

‘There’s no way they can get on,’ one of the lookouts said. ‘It’s going to be slippery. It’s very dangerous for the children on top.’

The wait continued.

More hours later, another train horn sounded. The migrants ran for it. The legless Venezuelan man on crutches somehow managing to keep up.

I followed close behind as the train stopped and the migrants scrambled up ladders onto the roof of one car. But, again, they were foiled.

A truck of armed Mexican National Guard troops and two immigration enforcement vans approached. Everyone rushed back down, dropping their backpacks off the train in a swirl of panic.

Seconds before the immigration vans arrived, they group disappeared into the brush.

I lingered to talk to the guards, but their vehicles never slowed. Though I could see that the two vans were full of migrants, perhaps caught elsewhere along the train line.

The train chugged away without anyone on it. And, shortly after, the migrants emerged from the brush once again.

This time, they refused to speak to me, hurrying off down the road… to a likely dead end.

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Truckers see pay surge as ICE sweeps illegal drivers off U.S. highways

Published on October 13, 2025

Todayville

MxM News

Quick Hit:

American truckers say they’re finally earning more per mile as President Donald Trump’s enforcement push clears illegal drivers off U.S. highways. Truckers have reported 50% pay increases on some routes following a surge of ICE activity and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s crackdown on safety and work permit violations.

Key Details:

A trucker on X said his usual Chicago-to-Fargo run jumped from $1,200 to $1,800, crediting the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement for thinning out illegal competitors.
ICE and federal transportation officials have detained or removed illegal drivers in multiple states, with reports of Serbian and Indian drivers losing their commercial licenses after failing to prove legal entry into the U.S.
FreightWaves founder Craig Fuller noted spot rates have risen about 2% despite weak demand, as “bottom feeders” who undercut prices are being “squeezed out of the market.”

Diving Deeper:

As President Trump’s immigration enforcement intensifies, American truckers are seeing something rare in a sluggish cargo economy: rising wages. Across online freight boards and social media, truckers are crediting the administration’s “Compliance Crunch” — a combination of ICE raids and new safety regulations — for clearing out illegal drivers who had been depressing pay rates for years.

One trucker wrote on X that his typical Chicago-to-Fargo route, which paid $1,200 before the election, now brings in $1,800. “Needless to say, I took him up on the offer,” he posted. “Lord do I hope this hangs around a little bit.”

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has been enforcing long-ignored safety and documentation rules, targeting companies that hired drivers without valid immigration status or complete customs paperwork. “We have Americans who’ve been in trucking for 50 years through family businesses,” Duffy told Fox News on October 8. “They can’t do business anymore because you have these illegals coming in, living out of their trucks… they can’t speak the language, and they come in under price — way under price.”

According to reports from The Serbian Times, at least fifteen Serbian drivers have been detained in recent days, and agents have begun seizing commercial driver’s licenses from migrants lacking proof of legal entry. Many of these drivers, primarily from Eastern Europe and South Asia, were able to operate under the Biden administration with minimal oversight — often undercutting legitimate American drivers by accepting lower pay.

Craig Fuller of FreightWaves observed that even though freight volumes remain “anemic,” per-mile spot rates rose roughly 2% as noncompliant firms exit the market. “We are seeing the bottom feeders get squeezed out,” he wrote, adding that most contract carriers haven’t yet felt the wage impact but likely will as enforcement spreads.

Industry experts say nearly one-third of the nation’s freight has been hauled by non-citizen drivers, which trucking analyst Bill Skinner called “not just a safety issue — it’s a national security risk.”

While some corporate logistics networks such as Amazon and Walmart may eventually argue that higher trucking wages could drive up costs, analysts note that the increases are modest and likely offset by fewer accidents, delays, and fraud cases tied to unlicensed or illegal operators.

illegal immigration

$4.5B awarded in new contracts to build Smart Wall along southwest border

Published on October 12, 2025

Todayville

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem rides an ATV along the U.S.-Mexico border wall in El Paso, Texas, on April 28, 2025. Photo: Tia Dufour / U.S. Department of Homeland Security

From The Center Square

By Bethany Blankley

New contracts to add 230 miles of barriers, nearly 400 miles of technology

Roughly $4.5 billion in contracts have been awarded to expand border wall construction, including adding advanced technological surveillance along the southwest border.

Ten new construction contracts have been awarded through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection to add hundreds of miles of Smart Wall in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

“For years, Washington talked about border security but failed to deliver. This President changed that,” CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott said. “The Smart Wall means more miles of barriers, more technology, and more capability for our agents on the ground. This is how you take control of the border.”

Border wall map — *Map courtesy of The Center Square*

Scott has championed advancing a Smart Wall border security system for years. A border security system is far more than a wall, he has told The Center Square, it’s an ecosystem.

The system encompasses steel and waterborne barriers, patrol roads, lights, cameras, advanced detection technology, including towers and aerostats, to provide Border Patrol agents with a range of tools to detect and interdict illegal activity.

CBP has published an interactive map to educate the public about the Smart Wall system. The map highlights areas of the 1,954-mile U.S.-Mexico border where wall construction has been completed, where border wall panels or waterborne barriers are under construction, where contracts have been awarded for proposed projects in the design phase or early construction, and planned construction areas that haven’t yet been awarded contracts.

Prior to Jan. 20, 2025, 702 miles of existing barriers had been constructed of primary wall and 76 miles of secondary wall, according to CBP data.

The new plan includes implementing barrier technology along 532 miles of the border where no barrier exists because of unfavorable terrain or remote location. It also includes deploying 550 miles of technology throughout previously constructed barriers, CBP says. Specific areas are also being built out in regions where contracts were previously canceled by the Biden administration.

In California, $483.5 million in taxpayer funding was awarded to BCCG Joint Venture for the Diego 1 Project to construct nine miles of new Smart Wall and 52 miles of system attributes in the San Diego Sector.

An additional $574 million was awarded to Fisher Sand & Gravel Co. for the El Centro 1 Project to construct eight miles of Smart Wall and install 63 miles of system attributes in the San Diego and El Centro sectors.

In California and Arizona, $199.5 million was awarded to Barnard Spencer Joint Venture for the Yuma 1 Project to construct 60 miles of system attributes in the Yuma Sector.

In Arizona, nearly $607 million was awarded to BCCG for the Tucson 1 Project to construct 23 miles of new secondary border wall and 66 miles of system attributes in the Tucson and Yuma sectors.

In New Mexico, $155.1 million was awarded to BCCG for the El Paso 1 Project to replace seven miles of old dilapidated barrier fencing in the Santa Teresa Area of Responsibility with a new Smart Wall. BCCG will also complete 22 miles of system attributes in the El Paso Sector in New Mexico.

Also in the El Paso Sector in New Mexico, Barnard Spencer Joint Venture was awarded nearly $579 million for the El Paso 2 Project to construct 23 miles of new Smart Wall and 81 miles of system attributes.

In the El Paso Sector in far west Texas, BCCG Joint Venture was awarded $850.4 million for the El Paso 3 Project to construct 42 miles of new primary Smart Wall, six miles of new secondary border wall and 46 miles of system attributes.

In Texas, BCCG Joint Venture was awarded $565 million for the Del Rio 1 Project to construct 22 miles of new primary Smart Wall, replace two miles of old barrier wall, and deploy 40 miles of waterborne barrier system in the Eagle Pass Area of Responsibility in the Del Rio Sector.

BCCG was also awarded $364.3 million for the Del Rio 2 Project to construct 10 miles of new primary Smart Wall, 23 miles of waterborne barrier system, and install 10 miles of system attributes in Eagle Pass.

BCCG was also awarded $96.1 million for the Rio Grande Valley Waterborne Barrier Project to deploy 17 miles of waterborne barrier in the Rio Grande River, south of Brownsville in Cameron County in the Rio Grande Valley Sector.

Another $550 million worth of contracts was also awarded to support Smart Wall construction. Additional construction and contracts are expected.

Funding for the projects comes from the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which President Donald Trump signed into law. It also includes some fiscal year 2021 border wall appropriations that were frozen during the Biden administration.

Waivers were also issued by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to expedite construction of nine miles in the San Diego Sector and 30 miles in the El Paso Sector in New Mexico. Both sectors were inundated with record high illegal traffic during the Biden administration.