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Troops at Mexico Border to Begin Heading Home as Thousands of Migrants Arrive

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The thousands of military troops that were deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border in response to incoming migrant caravans from Central America will begin withdrawing this week and should all be home before Christmas, according to Politico.

President Donald Trump ordered 5,800 troops to the border to support U.S. Customs and Border Patrol in its efforts to prevent the illegal entry of migrants into the U.S., but it appears their work is mostly done even as thousands of migrants begin arriving in Tijuana, Mexico.

“Our end date right now is 15 December, and I’ve got no indications from anybody that we’ll go beyond that,” said Army Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, who is in charge of the troops at the border.

What this means: Most of the deployed troops are in Texas, and most of the migrants — about 6,000 as of early Monday — are arriving in Tijuana, which is about 20 miles south of San Diego, California.

According to the Military Times, 2,800 troops are in Texas, 1,500 are in Arizona, and 1,300 are in California. As military personnel cannot perform law enforcement duties, the troops have been setting up barriers along the border and supporting border patrol operations.

(Read more from “Troops at Mexico Border to Begin Heading Home as Thousands of Migrants Arrive” HERE)

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Watch: Mexican Protesters Side With Trump

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Hundreds of Tijuana residents gathered on Sunday to protest the caravan migrants that are coming through Mexico to the United States, warning that “Donald Trump was right, this is an invasion!” and chanting, “Get out Hondurans, we do not want you here.”

“Tijuana residents waved Mexican flags, sang the Mexican national anthem and chanted ‘Out! Out!’ in front of a statue of the Aztec ruler Cuauhtemoc … they accused the migrants of being messy, ungrateful and a danger to Tijuana,” The Associated Press reported. “They also complained about how the caravan forced its way into Mexico, calling it an ‘invasion.’ And they voiced worries that their taxes might be spent to care for the group.”

. . .The news comes as hundreds of migrants reached the border fence that separates Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego, California, early last week and “some of them began illegally entering the U.S. after climbing the fence,” The Daily Wire reported.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a report in early November that stated there are “hundreds of convicted criminals or known gang members traveling in the migrant caravan that is traveling through Mexico to the U.S. southern border.”

“In fact, over 270 individuals along the caravan route have criminal histories, including known gang membership,” DHS reported. “Those include a number of violent criminals – examples include aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, armed robbery, sexual assault on a child, and assault on a female.”

(Read more from “Watch: Mexican Protesters Side With Trump” HERE)

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Trump Tweets a Photo of What the Border Fence With Tijuana Looks Like Now

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President Trump, apparently frustrated with footage of the U.S. border fence in Tijuana, Mexico, tweeted a photo Monday afternoon of a new and improved version.

Meanwhile, thousands of illegal migrants traveling in a caravan from Central America have made their way to Tijuana. They are on the Mexican side of the border waiting to make asylum claims in the U.S. The Trump administration recently implemented a new policy that allows migrants to claim asylum only at official ports of entry. Approximately 100 cases per day are completed and wait times can be as long as six months.

(Read more from “Trump Tweets a Photo of What the Border Fence With Tijuana Looks Like Now” HERE)

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Tijuana Mayor Denounces ‘Horde’ of Caravan Migrants

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Tijuana Mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum said Thursday that caravan migrants arriving by the hundreds are no longer welcome, an increasingly common sentiment among residents of the Mexican border city.

Gastelum described the caravan of Central American migrants as a “horde” that has been infiltrated by criminals who now threaten the community, in an interview with Milenio Television.

“Tijuana is a city of immigrants, but we don’t want them in this way,” the mayor, a member of the conservative National Action Party, said. “It was different with the Haitians, they carried papers, they were in order. It wasn’t a horde, pardon the expression.” . . .

The 4,000-strong caravan, a mix of families seeking asylum and economic migrants, continues to arrive in Tijuana after a journey of more than 2,500 miles from Honduras to the U.S.-Mexico border. Caravan organizers could have chosen a much shorter route to the border near the southern tip of Texas, but opted for Tijuana in part because the city had already hosted a similar group in April.

But the arrival of another caravan has frustrated local officials and residents who worry that the massive group of homeless Central Americans will be stuck in Tijuana indefinitely. U.S. border authorities are processing about 90 asylum seekers per day at the ports of entry near Tijuana, where there was a wait list of more than 3,000 people even before the caravan arrived. (Read more from “Tijuana Mayor Denounces ‘Horde’ of Caravan Migrants” HERE)

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Central American Caravan Has Arrived at the Southern Border. Here’s Their Plan Moving Forward.

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The caravan traveling from Central America to the United States has officially arrived at the United States-Mexico border in Tijuana, just south of San Diego, California, The New York Times reported. The illegal aliens on the caravan have survived the dangerous trek thus far but now they’re in for real trouble: figuring out how to get into the United States, especially now that the military was deployed.

President Donald Trump has promised to make it impossible for illegal aliens to seek asylum so caravan riders are considering their options. Some are setting up appointments with border patrol officials in hopes of pleading their case, others are contemplating staying in Mexico while another section will probably cross the border illegally. . .

According to César Anibal Palencia Chavez, Tijuana’s director of migrant services, 2,800 illegal aliens not associated with the group are currently waiting for asylum in the United States. They, too, are waiting in local shelters.

Chavez said Tijuana and Baja Mexico pleaded for the Mexican federal government to help the city with the influx of people – something they consider a “humanitarian crisis” – but they have not received a response.

“The federal government is not accompanying us,” he said. “It’s worrisome for a city to be left alone.” (Read more from “Central American Caravan Has Arrived at the Southern Border. Here’s Their Plan Moving Forward.” HERE)

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Caravan Migrants Refuse Mexico’s Offer for Schooling, Jobs and Much More

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Caravan migrants heading to the U.S. have refused Mexico’s offer to receive refugee status that would provide schooling, jobs, medical care and shelter. . .

The program gives refugee status to those who apply and provide migrants access to shelter, medical attention, schooling and temporary employment opportunities to Central American migrants in the Chiapas and Oaxaca states, according to The AP. . .

Those of working age would clean, repair and maintain infrastructure in the two southern Mexican states, according to the program. Migrants can also obtain Mexico’s version of a social security number called CURP (Clave Unica de Registro Publico). This will allow the migrants to have legal proof of identity, enter and leave shelters and open bank accounts.

The program came in response to the “unprecedented flow of people from Central American countries who have entered [into Mexico] the last few days,” according to the program’s press statement.

“The government of the Republic reiterates that the unrestricted commitment to the human rights or migrants does not mean an endorsement to irregular, massive and undocumented entry into Mexican territory, on the contrary it makes a new call to those who wish to enter Mexico, to avoid risks unnecessary and subject to the procedures that Mexican law establish,” a Ministry of the Interior press statement said. (Read more from “Caravan Migrants Refuse Mexico’s Offer for Schooling, Jobs and Much More” HERE)

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Mexican Ambassador Makes a Stunning Accusation About Migrant Caravan

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The Mexican ambassador to the United States said that they had reason to believe that the migrant caravan from Honduras heading towards the U.S. border was not the result of a grassroots effort, but was “politically motivated.” . . .

“Mexico also issued a very clear statement saying if somebody is seeking asylum, Mexico is there along now with the U.N. to look at those claims, we want to make sure those claims are legitimate.” . . .

“We have evidence that this caravan is also very much politically motivated,” he claimed. . .

“But we have also made very clear that there’s no legal ground on which Mexico can issue a permit by which people can just go through Mexico towards the United States,” he concluded.

The caravan of migrants from Honduras began its long trek to the U.S. border on Saturday with about 1,000 participants. Reports say it has swelled to 4,000 migrants as it crossed from Honduras into Guatemala. (Read more from “Mexican Ambassador Makes a Stunning Accusation About Migrant Caravan” HERE)

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FAKE NEWS ALERT: Presidential Candidate From Mexico Did Not Advocate for a Migrant ‘Invasion’ to U.S.

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Can you say, “Fake News”? An article has been making its way around social media claiming that the new Mexican presidential candidate has called for a mass migration to the United States. A “news site” by the name of wesupportDonaldTrump.com published the article and caused an uproar on Facebook. . .

The presidential candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, was not calling for a flood of illegal immigrants to cross the border to the U.S. His actual quote is translated as, “Soon, very soon, after the victory of our movement, we will defend all migrants all over the American continent. And the migrants of the world, who, by necessity, must abandon their towns to find life in the United States.” Lopez Obrador was simply mentioning that he would support those that found it necessary to cross the border in order to survive. His quote was taken wildly out of context. . .

On today’s episode of “The News and Why It Matters,” Pat Gray brought up this Facebook hoax. “He’s just saying that because of the way they live, that they need to cross the border for their families,” Pat said.

The other hosts — Stu Burguiere, Jason Buttrill, and Sara Gonzales — were confused with López Obrador’s logic. The candidate blatantly called migration to the United States “a human right we will defend.” Stu was especially annoyed with this reasoning. (Read more from “Fake News Alert: Presidential Candidate From Mexico Did Not Advocate for a Migrant ‘Invasion’ to U.S.” HERE)

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Mexico’s New Leftist President Is Not a Threat, but the Collapse of Mexico Is

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Andrés Manuel López Obrador won the Mexican presidency in a landslide election on Sunday. Obrador—or Amlo, as he’s commonly called—is a left-wing populist of the sort common to Latin America. A former mayor of Mexico City who twice ran for president and lost, in 2006 and 2012, the 64-year-old Obrador, who spent decades as a radical outsider in Mexican politics, now finds himself in the seat of power in a country that’s falling apart.

During his populist campaign, the silver-haired Obrador railed against the corruption of incumbent President Enrique Peña Nieto and his the conservative Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which Obrador denounced, not without good reason, as a “mafia of power.” Indeed, under Peña Nieto Mexico’s economy has stagnated and crime has spiraled out of control. It’s not a stretch to say the intertwined crises of poverty, corruption, and crime have driven Mexicans in desperation to elect their first leftist president since 1934.

Conservative media in America have greeted the news with alarm. Writing here at The Federalist on Friday, Helen Raleigh warned that Obrador’s “radical ideas will spell trouble for both Mexico and the U.S.,” citing his affinity for socialist dictators like Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. His positive view of illegal immigration to the United States could precipitate “a surge of illegal crossings at our southern borders.”

Concerns about Obrador and the border are especially acute among conservatives. Victor Davis Hanson declared last week in National Review that Americans should be concerned about Obrador because he is “anti-American” and will position Mexico as an “aggressor” by promoting the notion that Mexicans have a “human right” to illegally enter the United States.

Beyond illegal immigration, conservatives fear Obrador’s socialist tendencies. The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal warned Friday that an Obrador victory would cause Mexico to “slide backward,” undoing the economic progress of recent decades and undermining Mexico’s rising middle class. Fears of a leftist Mexican president have been echoed by The Daily Caller, Fox News, and even Sen. John McCain. (Read more from “Mexico’s New Leftist President Is Not a Threat, but the Collapse of Mexico Is” HERE)

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With Cartels in Control, There Are No Easy Answers to the Border Crisis

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. . .Libertarians, too, are grasping for simple solutions. Over at Reason, J.D. Tuccille suggests that “better smugglers” are the best way to fight Trump’s draconian border policy. “Immigrants and their supporters should give some thought, and effort, to improved smuggling channels that treat migrants better than the existing criminal networks, and offer them a better chance of success,” writes Tuccille. He doesn’t mention the possibility that these new smugglers might find themselves at odds with the old smugglers, whose profits are at stake, or that jumping into Mexico’s migrant smuggling trade as a freelancer carries the risk of, say, being beheaded by one of the cartels.

Tuccille’s facile take is emblematic of the way the media has more or less ignored the role that “criminal networks” are playing in all of this—a role that makes easy solutions impossible. Throughout the border crisis, the media’s attention has been focused on the plight of Central American families and the chaos created by Trump’s zero-tolerance policy. Sure, the president likes to exaggerate how many MS-13 gang members are crossing the border, but neither Trump nor his detractors are thinking seriously about the escalating violence and accelerating social collapse now underway in Mexico and Central America, and how crime syndicates are playing into illegal immigration along the southern border. . .

National elections in Mexico are set for July 1, and so far 121 political candidates, most of them running for local office, have been assassinated, along with dozens of their family members. Hundreds more have been attacked. On Thursday, a mayoral candidate in Ocampo, in the western state of Michoacan, was killed outside his residence—the third politician to be killed in Michoacan in just over a week. Federal police responded by arresting the entire town’s 27-officer police force on suspicion of involvement with the murder, another reminder that across Mexico drug cartels have infiltrated local and state police forces, political machines, and major industries. Candidates who speak out against corruption and vow to stand up to the cartels are especially in danger.

The violence is bad enough that the U.S. State Department has issued “do not travel” advisories for five Mexican states—Colima, Guerrero, Michoacan, Sinaloa, and Tamaulipas, whose northern boundary runs along the U.S. border from Brownsville to Laredo, Texas. These are the same travel advisories in place for countries like Libya, Syria, and North Korea. For much of the rest of Mexico, including nearly the entire U.S.-Mexico border, the State Department advises Americans to “reconsider travel.”

Tamaulipas is so dangerous right now that the interim governor of Nuevo Laredo, which sits directly across the Rio Grande from Laredo, has warned his citizens not to try to travel to the United States through Tamaulipas, and especially not through the town of Reynosa, across the river from McAllen, Texas. The official warning came a day after gunmen believed to be associated with the Gulf Cartel ambushed marines with the Mexican Navy three times in Nuevo Laredo, killing one and injuring 12 others. According to Mexican officials, the gunmen wore marine uniforms and drove vehicles with government markings. The ambushes only stopped when the marines called in a helicopter gunship for support. (Read more from “With Cartels in Control, There Are No Easy Answers to the Border Crisis” HERE)

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