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

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.”
illegal immigration
Court attempts to halt Trump deportations, El Salvador president says ‘too late’

From The Center Square
By
A class action lawsuit was filed on Saturday against the Trump administration after President Donald Trump signed an executive order invoking the Enemy Aliens Act to target, arrest and remove violent Venezuelan prison gang members, Tren de Aragua (TdA), from the U.S.
The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation on behalf of five Venezuelans illegally in the country who were detained in Texas and New York. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
On Saturday, nearly 300 violent illegal foreign nationals were removed from the U.S. and arrived in El Salvador with the cooperation of El Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele after reaching an agreement with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“The first 238 members of the Venezuelan criminal organization, Tren de Aragua, arrived in our country,” Bukele said in a post on X. “They were immediately transferred to CECOT, the Terrorism Confinement Center, for a period of one year (renewable).”
El Salvador also received 23 MS-13 gang members from the U.S. who were wanted by Salvadoran authorities, Bukele said. They include two ringleaders, one of whom “is a member of the criminal organization’s highest structure.” Those sent to El Salvador by the U.S. will help Bukele’s government “finalize intelligence gathering and go after the last remnants of MS-13, including its former and new members, money, weapons, drugs, hideouts, collaborators and sponsors.
“As always, we continue advancing in the fight against organized crime. But this time, we are also helping our allies, making our prison system self-sustainable, and obtaining vital intelligence to make our country an even safer place. All in a single action. May God bless El Salvador, and may God bless the United States,” he said.
The U.S. government is paying a small fee to detain them, Bukele said, and the prison is also making money because it requires inmates to work. These additional inmates, “combined with the production already being generated by more than 40,000 inmates engaged in various workshops and labor under the Zero Idleness program, will help make our prison system self-sustainable,” he said, noting that it costs $200 million a year to maintain.
In response, Rubio thanked Bukele saying, “El Salvador has agreed to hold the violent criminals “in their very good jails at a fair price that will also save our taxpayer dollars. President Nayib Bukele is not only the strongest security leader in our region, he’s also a great friend of the U.S.”
In an emergency hearing held on Saturday, a federal judge ruled that deportations of violent Venezuelans be temporarily halted and those who were illegally in the country and already removed be returned. The ACLU said the order blocked the administration “from deporting anyone under the Alien Enemies Act while the case proceeds. Flights carrying Venezuelan immigrants the DHS attempted to deport have been ordered to turn around and return to the U.S.”
A U.S. federal judge has no jurisdiction over foreign governments.
In response, Bukele posted on X, “Oopsie … Too late,” with a laughing emoji.
Bukele also posted videos and pictures of them arriving in El Salvador in handcuffs. The video shows them being met by El Salvadoran military wearing riot gear and transported in armored vehicles to CECOT. The videos depict El Salvadoran officials lifting up their shirts to show tattoos of gang member affiliation, officials shaving the heads of kneeling inmates and their admittance as CECOT inmates.
Today, the first 238 members of the Venezuelan criminal organization, Tren de Aragua, arrived in our country. They were immediately transferred to CECOT, the Terrorism Confinement Center, for a period of one year (renewable).
The United States will pay a very low fee for them,… pic.twitter.com/tfsi8cgpD6
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) March 16, 2025
Cooperation between the U.S. and El Salvador expanded under Trump and Rubio, representing a reversal of Biden administration policy that used taxpayer money and planes to transport illegal foreign nationals into the U.S.
Trump has been aggressively targeting of TdA after a record more than 1 million Venezuelans illegally entered the U.S. under the Biden administration, including TdA members expanding operations in at least 22 states, The Center Square first reported.
Under the Trump administration, Venezuelan repatriation flights also began, paid for by the Venezuelan government, negotiated by the Trump administration, The Center Square reported.
illegal immigration
“The Invasion of our Country is OVER”: Trump reports lowest illegal crossings in history

MxM News
Quick Hit:
President Donald Trump announced on Saturday that illegal immigrant apprehensions at the southern border plummeted to just 8,326 in February—marking a historic low. In a Truth Social post, Trump declared, “The Invasion of our Country is OVER,” crediting his administration’s tough enforcement measures for the drastic reduction.
Key Details:
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The figure represents a staggering 96% drop from December 2023, when illegal crossings under Joe Biden’s administration peaked at 301,981.
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Trump emphasized that those caught illegally entering the U.S. were “quickly ejected from our Nation or, when necessary, prosecuted for crimes against the United States of America.”
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Trump credited executive action, including an emergency border declaration, military deployments, the end of birthright citizenship, and a crackdown on sanctuary cities, for the sharp decline in illegal entries.
Diving Deeper:
President Trump’s first full month back in office saw a seismic shift in border security policy, leading to what he called “the lowest number of illegal border crossings in decades.” In a Truth Social post on Saturday, Trump highlighted the stark contrast between his administration and Biden’s, stating:
“This means that very few people came – The Invasion of our Country is OVER. In comparison, under Joe Biden, there were 300,000 Illegals crossing in one month, and virtually ALL of them were released into our Country. Thanks to the Trump Administration Policies, the Border is CLOSED to all Illegal Immigrants.”
Upon taking office, Trump signed multiple executive orders that significantly curtailed illegal immigration. These include reinstating policies that allow expedited removals, deploying U.S. troops to the southern border, resuming construction of the border wall, and ending Biden-era programs that facilitated migrant entry through humanitarian parole. Additionally, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reversed previous Biden restrictions on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), leading to a sharp uptick in interior enforcement.
According to DHS data obtained by Fox News Digital, ICE interior arrests skyrocketed by 137% in just three weeks, with 11,791 arrests recorded from Jan. 20th to Feb. 8th—compared to 4,969 during the same period in 2024. High-profile raids in sanctuary cities have also yielded thousands of arrests, including gang members and violent offenders.
The economic impact of Trump’s border policies is already being felt. Federal funds that had been allocated to house illegal immigrants in hotels, particularly in cities like New York, are being clawed back. A recent executive order directed all federal agencies to identify and cut off taxpayer-funded programs that benefit illegal immigrants.
Despite congressional gridlock preventing any new border legislation, Trump’s administration has relied solely on executive authority to crack down on illegal immigration. His message to potential border crossers remains clear: “Anyone who tries to illegally enter the U.S.A. will face significant criminal penalties and immediate deportation.”
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