illegal immigration
“We pray Trump doesn’t win”: 150,000 migrants in Mexico are rushing to the border before the election
From ToddBensman.com
By Todd Bensman as published by The Daily Mail
“I love Kamala Harris,’ a young Venezuelan man declared as he rested on the side of a highway in southern Mexico last week.
His belongings were heaped at his feet. Hundreds of fellow migrants stretched out along the roadway in both directions.
They’re headed for the U.S. and nearly all of them have an opinion about who should be America’s next president.
Donald Trump, no,’ the Venezuelan man said, shaking his head and dragging his thumb across his throat in a slicing motion.
He is one of thousands of migrants – from all over the world – joining a new rush traveling north from southern Mexico toward the U.S. border, less than two weeks before the presidential election.
I went to Tapachula in southwest Mexico near the border with Guatemala to investigate why they were on the move – again.
Throughout 2022 and 2023, massive caravans – some reportedly as large as 6,000-strong – became a common feature of the immigration crisis.
The mass migration became such a humanitarian and public relations disaster for the Biden-Harris Administration that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was dispatched to meet with Mexico’s president in December 2023 to demand that he impose stricter immigration controls.
And the pressure campaign worked.
‘I love Kamala Harris ,’ a young Venezuelan man declared as he rested on the side of a highway in southern Mexico last week. He is one of thousands of migrants – from all over the world – joining a new rush traveling north from southern Mexico toward the U.S. border, less than two weeks before the presidential election. (Above) Migrant caravan near Tapachula, Mexico on October 20, 2024
In January, I reported for DailyMail.com on Mexican police and military roundups near the U.S. border.
Migrants who made it to those northern provinces were detained and shipped hundreds of miles back south to cities like Tapachula in the southwest or Villahermosa near the gulf.
The Mexican media called it ‘Operation Carousel.’
And for nearly 10 months, the caravans stopped.
But now, they’re back on.
The migrants I spoke to on the road this week believe that this may be their last chance.
Many of them hope to reach the U.S. before November 5 because they fear that, if Trump is re-elected, he’ll close the southern border and enforce longstanding immigration laws.
‘If [Trump] wins… one has to do what the government says, [wait] for my turn,’ said Carlos, a Honduran man in a caravan 30 miles north of Tapachula.
In reality, it’s unlikely that these migrants will be able to make the 1,300-mile trek in the next two weeks. But they can try.
And there’s another more complicated reason that the caravans have started back up: The Mexican government is encouraging them.
The caravans that I traveled with were escorted by Mexican National Guard escorts, something that I have witnessed. Perhaps, it not only the migrants growing restless, so, too, are the authorities.
For months, an estimated 150,000 U.S.-bound migrants have been bottled up in increasingly dire conditions in Tapachula, as ever more arrive there from South and Central America.
In fact, the true number massing in southern Mexico may even be in the hundreds of thousands.
I’ve visited Tapachula at least five times over the last decade and I’ve never seen it so crowded. All the hotels and motels are packed. Immigrant shelters are at full capacity.
Those who cannot afford accommodations – including women and children – sleep on the streets and in city parks, packed in like sardines.
Remember this as you hear Vice President Kamala Harris tout new statistics showing a precipitous decline in the number of illegal U.S. border crossings in 2024.
She attributes the positive change to the recent enforcement of U.S. asylum laws. But that’s not the full story.
Even the Department of Homeland Security admitted earlier this month that the drop in illegal US border crossings is due, in part, to, ‘increased Mexican enforcement efforts.’
Indeed, at the White House’s behest, Mexico has been containing these people for months in southern cities like Tapachula and Villahermosa, which have come to resemble sprawling, open-air refugee camps.
Now the situation is becoming untenable.
According to those I’ve spoken to, the Mexican government’s promises to provide travel documents to the migrants have never materialized.
In an apparent recognition of the overcrowding, the U.S. government is now building a new migration processing facility in Tapachula.
Meanwhile, the Mexican government is starting to transfer migrants out of Tapachula into surrounding cities to relieve the growing pressure.
And, the coming election is only heightening tensions.
Incredible drone shows large caravan migrants heading to the US
A group of Ghanaian men in a congested park in Tapachula told me that they feared a Trump presidency.
‘We do not like Donald Trump, because he don’t like us,’ one man said.
To him, Kamala Harris is the preferred option.
Another Ghanian man said he plans to wait for the results of the election, before making his next move: ‘If after election day [Harris is elected], we know that everything is good, then we can enter.’
A group of Ghanaian men in a congested park in Tapachula told me that they feared a Trump presidency. ‘We do not like Donald Trump, because he don’t like us,’ one man said. To him, Kamala Harris is the preferred option.
A middle-aged Venezuelan man also in the park reiterated those fears: ‘We know that if Donald Trump wins, all the migrants will be kicked out the [United States]… we hope that he doesn’t win.’
It is still unclear how far north these migrant caravans will get before America votes – and I suspect that many migrants only wish to escape Tapachula.
But, certainly, it seems likely that after November 5 – Mexico’s newly-elected president will consider her country’s part in ‘Operation Carousel’ to be complete and lift any remaining immigration controls.
That would mean hundreds of thousands of migrants, who have been waiting out the U.S. election in Mexico, may be permitted to – once again – try their luck at crossing illegally into the U.S.
As far as they’re concerned, a Kamala Harris presidency would mean that America’s borders will be thrown open.
If Donald Trump is elected president, their plans may change.
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.
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.
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.
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. (Above) Mexican immigration on patrol
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.
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.
illegal immigration
Shocking footage shows Biden admin selling off southern border wall before Trump takes office
From LifeSiteNews
By Wade Searle
Many notable GOP figures are pushing back on the Biden-Harris White House for an apparent attempt to greatly hinder the incoming Trump administration’s plan to finish the southern border wall.
The Biden administration has been caught moving away unused materials for a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border to be auctioned off online, according to shocking footage taken by a US Customs agent, with bidding starting at just $5.00.
A border patrol agent told The Daily Wire that the material for the construction of the border wall along the southern border of the United States is being taken from multiple areas in Arizona: Nogales, Tucson, and Three Points, with the goal to “move all of it off the border before Christmas.” Footage provided by the border patrol agent shows several unused sections of border wall being taken away on flatbed trucks owned by DP Trucking LLC, a government contractor. The owner, Harold Lambeth, confirmed to Daily Wire over the phone that the border wall materials are indeed being transported away from construction sites– although he was “unable to disclose” any further information. The materials are being auctioned through GovPlanet, an online auction marketplace for surplus government equipment, with bidding for each section of wall panels beginning at just $5.00, according to the website. Materials for border wall construction were similarly sold by the Biden administration in 2023 through GovPlanet.
The Daily Wire exclusive led to widespread outrage on X, formerly known as Twitter, with many notable GOP figures pushing back on the Biden-Harris White House for an apparent attempt to greatly hinder the incoming Trump administration’s plan to finish the southern border wall. Elon Musk shared the footage in shock, writing “what!?” Texas Senator Ted Cruz said, “President Biden and Kamala Harris have successfully put illegal aliens over the safety and security of our own citizens,” in a statement posted to X on Thursday, adding, “Never forget why the American people rejected them.” Missouri Representative Eric Burlison accused the Biden administration of “intentionally sabotaging President Trump and the American people.”
Eric Schmitt, the Senator from Missouri, sent a letter on Friday to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin demanding that he “immediately cease the auctioning off of border wall materials.” Most notably, the letter contains a thorough analysis of the already completed sales of border wall material, finding that the Biden-Harris administration is recouping just 0.02% of the taxpayer money used to originally purchase the material under President Trump’s first term.
Hope may not be lost for the unused border wall material, however. In a conversation with Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Thursday, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick revealed that the state of Texas plans to purchase the border wall material up for auction and “give it to [President-Elect Donald] Trump.” Patrick told Ingraham that he has “a billion dollars in my pocket to do it,” adding that he plans to “go in and buy it all”. In a statement posted to X on Friday, the Lt. Gov wrote that “[Texas Governor Abbott] and I spoke last night about purchasing ‘wall’ material President Biden is auctioning off. The Governor had already instructed the [Texas Facilities Comission], which oversees Texas’ border wall construction, to look at what Biden was selling.” According to Patrick, the Texas Facilities Commission claims that the material for sale is mostly junk, including panels “covered in concrete and rust”.
“Rest assured, if they sell any panels that make economic sense, we will buy them and give them to President Trump when he takes office.” Lt. Gov. Patrick concluded.
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