Central American migrants hoping to enter the United States have said they will wait in Mexico in the hope that President Donald Trump loses reelection, where they will then cross the U.S. border.
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Multiple outlets deleted entire stories Tuesday after falsely reporting the number of children in migrated-related U.S. custody.
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The Trump administration has launched a pilot program that expedites the time it takes to process and deport asylum seekers at the U.S-Mexico border.
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More than 2,000 Central American migrants have returned to their homelands using a program that offers free transportation for the trip, according to a United Nations official.
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by Jason Hopkins Research estimates how much human smugglers make from transporting illegal migrants to the U.S.-Mexico border, revealing just how profitable the industry has become amid the current immigration crisis. Human traffickers made anywhere from $200 million to $2.3 billion in 2017 from smuggling migrants to the U.S., according to a study by the Rand Corporation and commissioned by the Department of Homeland Security. The study, titled Human Smuggling and Associated Revenues, sought to uncover more details about the revenue made by the transnational criminal organizations that bring individuals from Central America over to the U.S.-Mexico. The report found that the majority of illegal immigration to the U.S. is fueled by criminal organizational efforts, with more than 60% of illegal migrants estimated to be paying a human trafficker for help. Migrants will pay anywhere from $3,000 to over $11,000 in smuggling fees, depending on what type of route and service they request. Customers are given an array of choices for their journey, such as more expensive routes that are safer and less physically demanding, or routes that are cheaper, but more dangerous and taxing to cross. “[U]nlawful migrants generally are required to pay taxes, or pisos, to drug-…
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The federal government is opening a new mass facility to hold migrant children in Texas and considering detaining hundreds of more youths on three military bases around the country, adding a total of 3,000 new beds to the overtaxed system. The new emergency facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas, will hold up to 1,600 teens in a complex that once housed oil field workers on government-leased land near the border, said Mark Weber, a spokesman for Office of Refugee Resettlement. The agency is also weighing using Army and Air Force bases in Georgia, Montana and Oklahoma to house an additional 1,400 kids in the coming weeks, amid the influx of children traveling to the U.S. alone. Most of the children have arrived in the U.S. without their families and are held in government custody while authorities determine if they can be released to relatives or family friends. Shelters not subject to child welfare rules All the new facilities will be considered temporary emergency shelters and thus not be subject to state child welfare licensing requirements, Weber said. In January, the government shut down a large detention camp in the Texas desert that was unlicensed and another unlicensed facility remains in…
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WASHINGTON — The United States and Mexico hold more talks Thursday about migrant policy as a U.S. deadline looms for Mexico to take more action to control the number of people reaching the border or face tariffs on Mexican goods sent to the U.S. market. If no agreement is reached, U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to apply the 5% tariff beginning Monday, with monthly escalations up to as much as 25% by October. “Progress is being made, but not nearly enough!” he tweeted late Wednesday. “The higher the Tariffs go, the higher the number of companies that will move back to the USA!” He added Thursday in comments to reporters, “We’ve told Mexico the tariffs go on, and I mean it too.” Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard, who has led a delegation of negotiators in Washington this week, said after talks ended Wednesday that he remains optimistic the two sides will work out a deal. “What we want to avoid is the impact of the tariffs for the two economies, for the consumers, for the people of both countries,” he told reporters. He said both countries have been able to lay out their positions and that the dialogue…
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by Jason Hopkins The U.S. Border Patrol reportedly apprehended the largest single group of illegal immigrants in history, more than doubling the previous record. Border Patrol agents nabbed 1,036 migrants illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border near El Paso, Texas, on Wednesday morning, according to a report by NBC News, citing two U.S. officials and a document. The number marks the biggest group ever apprehended by law enforcement, with the previous record being 424. The demographics of the caravan closely matched what’s been seen at the border in recent time. Of the 1,036 who were apprehended, 934 were part of a family unit, 63 were unaccompanied minors, and 39 were either single adults or not yet identified. All of the individuals were from the three Northern Triangle countries of Central America — 515 people from Guatemala, 135 people from Honduras and another 76 from El Salvador. The record-smashing apprehension comes as more and more migrants are reaching the U.S. southern border, igniting a crisis that is breaking immigration enforcement resources. Migrant encounters have increased every month since January. March and April — the most recent months Customs and Border Protection has on record — marked two consecutive months where migrant…
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The Trump administration on Thursday said a surge of migrant arrivals at the southern U.S. border continues to accelerate, with more than 300,000 mostly Central American undocumented immigrants apprehended or requesting asylum so far in the current fiscal year, which began last October. “We are in the midst of an ongoing humanitarian and security crisis at the southwest border,” acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary KevinMcAleenantold a Senate panel. “Almost 110,000 migrants attempted to cross without legal status last month, the most in over a decade, and over 65% were families and unaccompanied children.” At the current pace, 2019’s total for migrant arrivals would more than triple the number reported for all of 2018, which was 169,000. Factors in migration McAleenan said that while gang violence and rampant insecurity in three Central American nations have started to ebb, other factors, such as persistent droughts and a lack of economic opportunity, continue to compel a large number of people to trek north. The DHS acting secretary also highlighted U.S. policy as a “pull factor” for migrants. “Families [apprehended at the border] can no longer be held together through an appropriate and fair proceeding, and essentially have a guarantee of release…
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by Reuters Hundreds of detainees from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facilities in Texas and elsewhere are being flown to San Diego for processing beginning Friday, the agency said. Border officials said they are developing plans to fly potentially thousands of migrant families to other places away from the southern U.S. border with Mexico. The agency said the number of people apprehended at the border since Oct. 1 was nearly 520,000, the highest in a decade. In the past week, there was an average of 4,500 arrests a day. This is making it difficult to process and release family units within 20 days of their arrival at a detention center, as required by law, the CBP said in a statement. Three flights a week U.S. President Donald Trump earlier this year declared the immigration influx a national emergency, which allowed him to circumvent Congress to redirect more than $6 billion in funding to start building the border wall that he campaigned on in the 2016 presidential election. His move has been challenged in courts. Three flights a week will arrive in the San Diego area from the Rio Grande Valley carrying about 130 people per flight, a CBP…
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by Jason Hopkins A Border Patrol chief on Friday broke down how many times his agents have put their lives on the line to save illegal migrants attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, an area laden with deadly deserts and river currents. “We have had 2,500 rescues this year,” Border Patrol Law Enforcement Operations Chief Brian Hastings said Friday on Hill.TV. “About 400 of those are water rescues where agents have put their own lives on the line, jumped into a fast-moving current to save children, or to save adults, or to save those that are in distress, and that’s on a daily basis.” Hastings, who has worked in border security since 2005, noted that this was the “most dangerous” time to be a border agent since he can remember. .@CBP Chief Brian Hastings told me this AM that Border Patrol agents have made 2500 rescues of migrants this year w/ 400 of those being water rescues, putting agents at risk. He says it is most dangerous time in his 3 decade career to be a BP agent today https://t.co/uCvpJkldie pic.twitter.com/MrixFqFvqr — Saagar Enjeti (@esaagar) May 17, 2019 Hastings noted that many of the rescues take place in the…
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by Jason Hopkins The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will soon begin on-the-spot DNA testing of migrants apprehended at the southern border, officials said Wednesday. The pilot program, which is expected to start as soon as the coming week, will take place at two different locations on the U.S.-Mexico border and last for several days. The so-called Rapid DNA test consists of a cheek swab that can yield results within 90 minutes. The DNA results will be used to verify whether apprehended migrants are telling the truth when they claim to be part of a family unit. The program, officials noted, will be voluntary and the results are only used to verify familial relationships — not to prosecute immigrants who aren’t involved in smuggling. “This is an unprecedented step forward in our investigative process and techniques,” a DHS officials said to reporters during a Wednesday conference call. The upcoming pilot project comes as a surging number of “fraudulent families” are arriving at the U.S. southern border. Border Patrol identified more than 3,000 fake family cases in the past six months. DHS officials noted a 315 percent increase in the number of adults and children fraudulently posing as “family units”…
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New Mexico’s state fairgrounds will begin to house migrant families to take the pressure off border cities facing a surge in asylum seekers with no help from the federal government, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham said on Tuesday. Dormitories at state-run Expo New Mexico in Albuquerque will provide temporary accommodation to several dozen migrants, becoming one of the largest migrant shelters in the state, said a joint statement from the governor and Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller, both Democrats. Lujan Grisham has called for a humanitarian response to the rise in asylum seekers. “The federal government has not provided shelter or timely adjudication at the border leaving migrants without any means to make arrangements to get to their sponsors or family members in the United States,” the statement said. Migrant shelters in border cities like El Paso, Texas, and Las Cruces, New Mexico, are at or near capacity as record numbers of mainly Central American families cross the border to seek asylum. The mayors of New Mexico’s three largest cities – Las Cruces, Albuquerque and Santa Fe – have offered resources to help charities and faith-based organizations care for migrants after they are dropped off by U.S. immigration authorities.…
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by Jason Hopkins Illegal migrants were spotted using a drone for the first known time to help them cross the U.S. southern border. U.S. Border Patrol agents near El Paso, Texas, monitoring the area with an infrared camera spotted a small airborne object traveling over the U.S.-Mexico border in the early hours of Tuesday morning. The object flew about 100 yards north, entering U.S. soil, then returned back. The object, which was determined to be a drone, repeated this pattern three different times. Ten illegal immigrants were spotted passing the border in the same vicinity the drone had monitored roughly two minutes after the drone retreated back into Mexico territory for the third time. “This is the first known time in recent history that a drone has been utilized as a ‘look-out’ in order to aid in illegal entries in the El Paso Sector,” Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said in a press release. The Border Patrol agents were able to “quickly” apprehend the migrants and take them into custody. Beyond encountering a drone, agents in the El Paso Sector dealt with an “unprecedented number” of illegal migrants at the border that same day. El Paso Sector officials made…
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The Trump administration wants to open two new tent facilities to temporarily detain up to 1,000 parents and children near the southern border, as advocates sharply criticize the conditions inside the tents already used to hold migrants. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a notice to potential contractors that it wants to house 500 people in each camp in El Paso, Texas, and in the South Texas city of Donna, which has a border crossing with Mexico. Each facility would consist of one large tent that could be divided into sections by gender and between families and children traveling alone, according to the notice. Detainees would sleep on mats. There would also be laundry facilities, showers, and an “additional fenced-in area” for “outside exercise/recreation.” The notice says the facilities could open in the next two weeks and operate through year-end, with a cost that could reach $37 million. But the agency has said its resources are strained by the sharp rise in the numbers of parents and children crossing the border and requesting asylum. It made 53,000 apprehensions in March of parents and children traveling together, most of whom say they are fleeing violence and poverty in Central America.…
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by Jason Hopkins Law enforcement agents apprehended or turned back 103,492 migrants attempting to reach the U.S. southern border in March, marking the highest month in 12 years. The U.S. Border Patrol apprehended 92,607 individuals between ports of entry at the southern border. Another 10,885 migrants appeared at a port of entry, but were deemed inadmissible and were turned away, according to data released by Customs and Border Protection. “The Border Patrol is facing an unprecedented humanitarian and border security crisis,” Brian Hastings, Border Patrol’s chief of law enforcement operations, told reporters Tuesday. “We’ve arrived at the breaking point.” Of all the foreign nationals turned away and apprehended in March, more than 53,000 belonged to family units and nearly 9,000 were unaccompanied alien children (UAC). Only 30,555 were single adults. The demographics indicate the crisis immigration enforcement agents are facing. U.S. trafficking laws, which were designed to handle illegal migrants made up of mostly single men from Mexico, have made it difficult for law enforcement officials to process the unprecedented volume of Central American families and children breaching the U.S.-Mexico border. The situation has stretched government resources beyond the breaking point, and leaving officials with no choice but to…
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by Jason Hopkins A caravan of mostly Central Americans began its trek toward the United States over the weekend, setting the stage for what will likely be another showdown between border enforcement officials and migrants. Around 1,200 migrants formed a caravan in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas and, following the same route as numerous groups before them, started their journey northward Saturday, according to Reuters. The U.S.-bound group is made of mostly Central Americans from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, but also includes Cuban migrants. The National Migration Institute — a department within the government of Mexico that tracks immigration — said the migrants were already within the country before they decided to assemble into a caravan near the country’s southern border with Guatemala. The latest caravan will likely further inflame tensions between these Central American countries and the White House. President Donald Trump, who has made increased immigration enforcement a hallmark of his executive agenda, has threatened Central American governments with repercussions for allowing migrants to freely make their way to the U.S. “… Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador are doing nothing for the United States but taking our money. Word is that a new Caravan is forming…
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by Jason Hopkins While the number of apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border have gone down, applications for asylum are reaching all-time highs. Around 304,000 illegal immigrants were apprehended at the southwest border during the 2017 fiscal year, a dramatic plunge from the 1.6 million apprehensions recorded in 2000. At the same time, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recored 78,564 requests for asylum in 2017, a major increase from the 13,880 requests made in 2012. These numbers have only increased. During this fiscal year, the USCIS recorded a record-setting 99,035 asylum requests — 62,609 of which included Salvadorans, Guatemalans, and Hondurans. “We’ve never seen this many people coming to the border to seek asylum,” Faye Hipsman, a former analyst with the Migration Policy Institute, told The Wall Street Journal. The rise in asylum applications come at a time when the White House is working to reform the process. “My administration is finalizing a plan to end the rampant abuse of our asylum system to halt the dangerous influx and to establish control over America’s sovereign borders,” President Donald Trump announced in early November, around the same time a caravan of Central Americans was heading toward the U.S. border.…
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The city government of Tijuana announced Saturday that it has closed a migrant shelter at a sports complex close to the U.S. border that once held about 6,000 Central Americans who hope to get into the U.S. Officials said all the migrants were being moved to a former concert venue much farther from the border. The city said in a statement the sports complex shelter was closed because of unsanitary conditions. Experts had expressed concerns about unsanitary conditions that had developed at the partly flooded sports complex, where the migrants had been packed into a space adequate for half their numbers. Mud, lice infestations and respiratory infections were rampant. Farther from the border The remaining migrants were taken by bus to the new shelter about 10 miles (15 kilometers) from the border crossing at Otay Mesa and 14 miles (22 kilometers) from San Ysidro, near where people line up to file applications for asylum in the United States. Tijuana officials had said earlier that nobody would be forced to move to the new facility, a large building and concrete patio known as El Barretal that was used for concerts and other events until about six years ago. But they also…
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by Luke Rosiak The caravan of migrants that traveled from Honduras to Mexico includes foreign nationals pledging to abolish the U.S. immigration authorities, openly discussing their intent to illegally enter the U.S., and reading communist literature about overthrowing President Donald Trump, according to an in-depth report by journalists on the ground in Tijuana for the Epoch Times. It said a Los Angeles-based group called Al Otro Lado (“To the other side”) is guiding migrants and its litigation director, Erika Pinheiro, is on the scene telling the migrants how to make sure they don’t just get into the U.S., but get as many benefits from its government as possible. But she advised that criminals and previous deportees in the group can still get a different status, called “withholding of removal status,” in which “you won’t be deported but it doesn’t have many benefits.” The night many migrants rushed the border, they received a flier by a California-based Communist group known as BAMN — whose slogan is “Trump must go or be removed BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY” — saying “Open it up or we’ll shut it down! Everyone must be let in!” “Let’s organize active solidarity and defense against any nationalist or government attack,” another flier from the…
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by Pedro Gonzalez There is a war on for hearts and minds of Americans, and it began long before the first shots were fired on Sunday along the United States-Mexico border, when federal agents deployed tear gas against aggressive foreign nationals attempting to force their way into our country. But the media coverage of the border skirmish is more telling of the nature of this conflict than canisters of lachrymator. There are three news clippings that might illustrate this point. CNN, to start, placed scrambling Central American “families with young children” in the limelight of the clash, yet didn’t show those same people hurling large stones in the direction of American law enforcement, many of whom presumably have families with young children, too. ABC News, on the other hand, didn’t mention at all that foreign nationals endangered federal agents. “Children were screaming and coughing in the mayhem” that, if one were to read nothing but ABC’s “The Latest,” would seem to have been induced spasmodically by trigger-happy Border Patrol—who, for what it’s worth, are mostly Latino. The worst offender was perhaps the Associated Press. Making no mention of projectile attacks by foreign nationals directed at Americans, the AP quoted…
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by Will Racke As the initial wave of Central American migrants traveling in a caravan streamed into Tijuana on Tuesday, many of them broke from the group and scaled the border fence just south of San Diego’s International Friendship Park. Video taken by the San Diego Union-Tribune shows dozens of migrants climbing to the top of the barrier, where they waved and whistled at Border Patrol agents standing guard a few hundred feet away. In a statement released Tuesday, the Border Patrol said it believes some of the people who climbed onto the fences are from the caravan of about 4,000 migrants that has been making its way north through Mexico for the past several weeks, FOX5 San Diego reported. Tuesday’s scene near Friendship Park was reminiscent of what happened when a similar caravan of migrants arrived in Tijuana in April. In that instance, caravan migrants scrambled to the top of the border fence and waved the national flag of Honduras, the country many had fled just weeks before. The latest caravan has been the impetus for the Trump administration’s multi-pronged crackdown on illegal immigration in recent weeks. Characterizing the group as a potential “invasion” of U.S. territory, President…
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by Henry Rodgers Republicans believe their opposition to the migrant caravan filled with thousands of illegal immigrants who are approaching the U.S. border will help energize their base before the Nov. 6 midterm elections, while many Democrats have continued to remain silent on the issue. The caravan, which was roughly 2,000 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border near Tijuana and about 800 miles from the southern tip of Texas as of Thursday, has been a key issue for Republicans less than one week out from the midterm elections, as GOP candidates have been hammering their Democratic opponents for not mentioning the potential threat to the U.S. The Republican National Committee (RNC) and Republican strategists have all echoed similar messages, saying the migrant caravan would indeed help the GOP before the midterm elections — many saying it reminds voters that Democrats are putting U.S. citizens in danger. They also mentioned how the silence from Democrats on the issue will end up helping Republicans, who have so vocally denounced the caravan entering the country. “From their open border policies to their calls to abolish ICE, the caravan is yet another reminder to voters that Democrats have put the sovereignty of our country in…
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by William Racke Mexico sent federal police to its southern border Wednesday with a warning that they will detain and deport any members of a highly publicized migrant caravan who try to enter the country without a visa. The police officers arrived in two planes in Tapachula, a border city that is a popular waypoint for migrants coming up through Central America to cross into Mexico. Local media reports showed hundreds of agents deplaning, some carrying riot gear. In a statement released Wednesday evening, the Mexican foreign ministry said any of the caravan migrants entering the country “in an irregular manner” will be arrested and administratively deported if appropriate. Migrants who claim they are fleeing violence and want to petition for asylum must do so at the border, while remaining in a government-run camp for up to 45 days, the statement also said. The caravan, dubbed “March of the Migrant,” formed in the northern Honduran city of San Pedro Sula on Friday, numbering about 150 migrants. It has since swelled to more than 2,000 people and has already crossed into neighboring Guatemala en route to the Mexican border. Caravan members say they are fleeing endemic poverty and violence in Honduras. Upon reaching…
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Italian officials say their government has told the European Commission in Brussels it is considering stopping ships that are not Italian-registered from disembarking at its ports migrants who were rescued while trying to cross the Mediterranean from Libya. The dramatic move comes after nearly 11,000 asylum-seekers and economic migrants, mainly from African nations, arrived on Italian…
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