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Even before taking office, Trump puts Mexico on spot — stop the caravans now

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News release from Todd Bensman of the Center for Immigration Studies

By Todd Bensman as published November 7, 2024 by The New York Post

“I’m going to inform [Mexico’s president] on day one or sooner that if they don’t stop this onslaught of criminals and drugs coming into our country, I’m going to immediately impose a 25% tariff on everything they send into the United States of America”

Even before the US polls opened Tuesday, a vanguard of immigrants at least 5,000 strong set out on a long march from deep southern Mexico to the US southern border.

The purpose: to test whether new Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum will use the military to stop them now that the American election is over.

No less at stake in this fresh northward moving caravan challenge is whether hundreds of thousands more pooled up behind them in southern Mexico — with thousands more a day crossing into Mexico from Guatemala — will observe an unimpeded passage for this vanguard and follow it in a massive human swell that would presumably last until Donald Trump is sworn in January 20.

But Trump isn’t waiting. Just a day before the caravans launched and he won his election, Trump threatened massive, debilitating tariffs on Mexican exports if Sheinbaum lets caravans make it to the border before he gets into office.

“I’m going to inform [Mexico’s president] on day one or sooner that if they don’t stop this onslaught of criminals and drugs coming into our country, I’m going to immediately impose a 25% tariff on everything they send into the United States of America,” Trump declared at his Raleigh, NC, rally on Monday.

“If that doesn’t work,” he added, “I’ll make it 50, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll make it 75. Then I’ll make it 100.”

Recent history shows that this warning shot that Trump fired over the presidential palace has very real potential to impede any mad final mass dash on the southern border during the coming transition period — and much more.

Recall that last December, President Biden struck a backroom deal with Mexico City to alleviate the political spectacle of a badly congested southern border for the coming 2024 political campaign season. For 10 months straight, the deal has had 32,500 Mexican troops and even more federales round up tens of thousands of intending border-crossers from the country’s north and ship them by force to a militarized blockade of its southern provinces.

The operation, known in the Mexican media as “Operation Carousel,” worked wonders, cutting in half world-record illegal border crossings last fall within its first month alone and more every month since.

But no one really knows what would become of Operation Carousel once the American election was over, with Mexico feeling its obligation to the Biden-Harris campaign was now met.

Not least the thousands of trapped immigrants eager to get in before Trump takes office. They’ve been listening with growing panic to his campaign talk about closing the border down immediately while Mexico was trapping them down there and, almost certainly, his very first promissory words of Wednesday morning’s victory speech, “We’re going to fix the border.”

Trump’s tariff threat is not an idle one. Mexico’s economy utterly depends on its US exports. In 2023 and 2024, Mexico overtook China as the US’s largest trading partner, with exports from Mexico reaching their highest in the history of both countries to nearly $379 billion in 2024, increasing another 6.5% in the last quarter. Revenue from Mexican exports to the US totaled a record $593 billion last year.

That won’t be lost on Sheinbaum, a liberal progressive who has long favored passing the mass migration hot potato on to the United States.

As a protégé of former President Andres Manuel Lopez-Obrador (AMLO), Sheinbaum would most definitely recall that her old boss suffered Trump’s first tariff-threat rodeo back in 2019.

That was when Trump, facing a brief but intense surge of family units at the southern border, threatened progressive trade tariffs on Mexican exports that would reach 28% if AMLO did not deploy military to shut down his own southern border with Guatemala and hem in immigrants behind 50 militarized roadblocks leading out of the southern provinces like Chiapas state.

AMLO did as he was told to avoid economic ruination for his country.

Once Biden entered office in 2021, he swept Trump’s tariff threat stick from the table and, politely asking AMLO to keep the operation going, switched to carrots — meaning cash.

The historic mass migration of millions followed — and has now swept Trump into office again.

Will Sheinbaum heed Trump’s tariff threat? She’s being cagey so far, saying only that Trump’s election was “no cause for concern.”

“We are a free, independent, sovereign country and there will be good relations with the United States. I am convinced of this,” she said at a news conference.

The next few months will prove whether that’s true.

Todd Bensman, a senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, is the author of “Overrun: How Joe Biden Unleashed the Greatest Border Crisis in U.S. History.”

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Daily Caller

Los Angeles Passes ‘Sanctuary City’ Ordinance In Wake Of Trump’s Deportation Plan

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

By Jason Hopkins

The Los Angeles City Council approved an ordinance Tuesday designating the city as a “sanctuary city” following President-elect Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan.

This measure prevents the use of local resources for immigration enforcement and prohibits city agencies from sharing information about undocumented residents with federal immigration authorities, according to The Associated Press. The council voted unanimously, aligning Los Angeles with numerous cities across the U.S. that have adopted similar policies.

The ordinance will undergo a second council vote for procedural reasons as Mayor Karen Bass, who has expressed support for the initiative, holds veto power but is unlikely to use it, AP reported. Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez pointed out the city’s firm stance against cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“We’re going to send a very clear message that the city of Los Angeles will not cooperate with ICE in any way,” Soto-Martinez said. “We want people to feel protected and be able to have faith in their government and that women can report domestic violence crimes.”

Soto-Martinez also noted that many immigrants without legal status are integral to the community, working in roles such as housekeepers, nannies, and cooks, AP reported. While the ordinance highlights the city’s values, critics argue that Los Angeles already refrains from cooperating with federal immigration agencies, suggesting the policy may not bring significant operational changes.

Trump announced that former acting ICE Director Tom Homan will take on the role of border czar in his upcoming administration. Homan will oversee border operations, including deportations, security at land and sea entry points, and aviation safety measures.

Trump revealed Monday that he plans to declare a national emergency and deploy military resources to execute his mass deportation agenda. He confirmed reports from Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton, who claimed the administration is ready to use emergency powers to address what he called the “Biden invasion.”

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Daily Caller

“I know three families that have gone to Canada.”: Locals Say Haitians Are Hoofing It Out Of Springfield After Trump Win

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

By Jason Hopkins

‘They Are Afraid’

Haitians living in Springfield, Ohio appear to be fleeing the city in droves after President-elect Donald Trump was declared the winner of the election, according to reports from locals.

The national spotlight shined on Springfield, a city of roughly 60,000 residents nestled in central Ohio, for weeks following unverified viral online claims that Haitians migrants had been spotted butchering a pet for consumption. The subsequent uproar about Springfield sparked further media debate about mass migration and its consequences, as Springfield has been dealing with an influx of Haitian migrants in a relatively short amount of time.

“The traffic situation seems to be better now,” longtime resident Barron Seelig said to the Daily Caller News Foundation, referring to widespread accounts from city residents in past months that Haitian drivers are causing mayhem on the roads.

While Seelig did speak about local rumors of impending Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids possibly scaring Haitians away, he also mentioned recent crackdowns by highway patrol officers and added that some migrants are leaving because they don’t enjoy the Ohio winters. Another Springfield local told the DCNF that he heard it was virtually impossible to rent a U-Haul truck because so many Haitians are currently renting them — presumably to leave town.

Those who provide services to immigrant services in the city have also said that Trump’s election victory has prompted Haitians to flee en masse.

“Some folks don’t have credit cards or access to the internet, and they want to buy a bus ticket or a plane ticket, so we help them book a flight,” Margery Koveleski, who helps Haitian migrants manage government bureaucracy, told The Guardian. “People are leaving.”

“People are fully aware of the election result, and that is why they are leaving; they are afraid of a mass deportation” Jason Payen, a co-founder of the Haitian Community Alliance, said to the Guardian.

“Several of my customers have left. One guy with his family went to New Jersey; others have gone to Boston,” Payen continued. “I know three families that have gone to Canada.”

Trump, for his part, has vowed to embark on a border enforcement agenda that will apply to the entire country.

During the campaign, Trump pledged to continue building the U.S.-Mexico border wall, revive the Remain in Mexico program, hire more border patrol agents and conduct the “largest deportation program in American history,” and end birthright citizenship for those born on U.S. soil to illegal migrant parents.

Trump said in October that he would revoke Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian nationals and “bring them back” to the country. The Biden-Harris administration has provided TPS — which temporarily gives deportation protections to its designees — to hundreds of thousands of Haitian nationals currently living in the U.S.

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