Who is supporting the immigrant caravan?

[dislaxxic]

Trump and His Allies Have Lost the Public Debate Over Immigration

"In the absence of legislative success, FAIR’s former staffers and allies in the Trump administration are turning to executive action. Trump has cut refugee admissions to record lows. USCIS, the legal immigration agency, has adopted a long list of policies that make it harder to come to the United States legally, although so far, the number of green cards issued each year is still in line with where it was under Obama. USCIS is in the process of implementing new regulations to dramatically expand a section of immigration law that blocks people from entering the country if they are likely to rely on government assistance, such as food stamps or Medicaid. The rule, which is not yet finalized, could cut legal immigration by hundreds of thousands of people per year by denying green cards to the relatives of working-class immigrants. But unlike legislation, the rule could be overturned by a future administration. Twenty-two Democratic senators—including five of the six running for president—sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security in October, requesting that it withdraw the rule.

Asked about FAIR’s record under Trump, Sharry, of America’s Voice, responded with glee. Republicans, he noted, controlled Congress for two years and had the most nativist president in modern history. “And on his signature issues of a border wall and cuts to legal immigration, they got zilch, nada, zero,” he said. “That is an abject failure.”

..

[ToastDunk]

Sorry I'm late to this party, what immigrant caravan?

[old salt]

Caravan ? What Caravan ? {lengthy detailed excerpt for non-subscribers]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... story.html

The Conveyor Belt -- Criminal organizations in Mexico have mounted a lucrative new smuggling operation that uses express buses to deliver Guatemalan migrant families to the U.S. border in a matter of days, making the journey faster, easier and safer, according to U.S. law enforcement reports and U.S. and Guatemalan officials.
The smugglers entice families with promises their journey will be free of the perils usually associated with travel to the U.S. border, along with assurances that by turning themselves in to U.S. authorities they will be released into the country within days.
Paying up to $7,000 per adult with child, families are transported to staging areas at ranches and hotels in southern Mexico, where they are organized into bus groups and rushed north along Mexican highways, “stopping only for food, fuel and bathroom breaks,” according to the U.S. law enforcement documents.
The model particularly appeals to families by minimizing some of the more intimidating and unsavory aspects of traditional Mexican smuggling operations, known for cramming migrants into squalid stash houses, where Central Americans are regularly abused and extorted for additional payments. The busing system has skirted those dangers, generating few reports of violence or mistreatment, U.S. officials say.
Within 72 hours of leaving the staging areas, the buses arrive at predetermined drop-off points within walking distance of the U.S. border. Migrant families are clustered into groups that have at times exceeded 300 adults and children, and they walk directly across the border, in some cases stepping over barriers in long, orderly lines. They then surrender to U.S. Border Patrol agents and initiate asylum claims.

Previously undisclosed details of the smuggling system are outlined in U.S. law enforcement reports reviewed by The Washington Post. The official who shared them did so on the condition of anonymity to disclose internal operations details. They depict an upstart, highly profitable entrepreneurial operation that is designed to exploit dysfunction in the American immigration system and U.S. court rulings that mandate families be released from custody while their asylum claims are processed.
The success of the operation is the most extreme example yet of smugglers’ ability to capi­tal­ize on the shift in unauthorized migration to the United States characterized by soaring numbers of adults traveling with children.
By using the direct-bus method, smugglers can eliminate the need for stash houses along the border where they would normally keep migrants under the watch of armed guards before sneaking them across the border. The express routes “minimize overhead and maximize capacity,” according to the U.S. documents, allowing smugglers to reduce “operational costs to a minimum.”

Since October, U.S. border agents have encountered at least 70 large groups of 100 or more migrants, up from 13 such groups during fiscal 2018. Approximately 12,000 parents and children have arrived in the groups, generating tens of millions of dollars in smuggling fees.
U.S. officials call the system “The Conveyor Belt” and have asked Mexican authorities to help stop it. But the conveyor pattern has continued for months, part of a record-breaking surge in crossings by families that the White House has declared a “humanitarian and border security crisis.” Last month, 40,325 arrived in family groups, up 67 percent from January.
Border arrests peaked at 1.6 million in 2000 and began to decline, falling to 303,000 in 2017, the lowest point in half a century. But Homeland Security officials say they are on pace to encounter nearly 1 million unauthorized border crossers during the current fiscal year, as arrests reach their highest level in more than a decade.

The influx has left U.S. border security “at a breaking point,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin K. McAleenan told reporters this month.
Migrants continue to stream to the border in a variety of ways, with large numbers of Hondurans forming caravan groups, and other Central Americans making the trip in smaller clusters and by more conventional means. But describing the express buses to reporters, McAleenan said the “shorter smuggling cycle” offered by the smugglers had cut the length of the journey from several weeks to “four to seven days.”
“The availability of these express-bus routes means that more young children are arriving at our border, and we are seeing migrants arrive with illness and medical conditions in unprecedented numbers,” he said.
Tailored to the new, booming aspect of unauthorized U.S. migration — parents bringing children — the new express-bus system’s success would not have been possible in previous eras, when the vast majority of migrants were single adults from Mexico whose goal was to avoid getting caught.
Instead, recruiters are selling clients in Guatemala on the journey with presentations akin to the benign pitch of a travel agency. They offer a range of price points at different levels of passenger comfort, according to U.S. and Guatemalan officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share sensitive details about smuggling networks’ operations.
Customers paying as little as $2,500 are typically made to ride in trucks or stand in cattle cars, while others buying packages for $7,000 or more get premium bus service. Children generally travel free because those who arrive at the U.S. border with a minor need only to be guided to the edge, not smuggled across it.

The express journey is typically financed by migrants’ relatives already working in the United States or with microloans that leverage homes and property as collateral, in some cases with notarized documents that allow the smuggling organizations to collect unpaid debts. In an especially worrisome sign for U.S. officials, the price of the journey has been dropping in recent months as the rapid-bus routes allow smugglers to cut costs and boost volume.
In most cases, upon crossing the border the migrants express a fear of persecution if deported back home, the first step in seeking U.S. asylum. Some arrive with detailed stories of gang threats, violence and police inaction, and documents to back their claims.

But many other Guatemalans appear to be heading north for jobs in a humming U.S. economy that is facing labor shortages. In November, Guatemala became the leading source of unauthorized migration to the United States, surpassing Mexico for the first time.
One Guatemalan father, reached by phone in Houston where he was reunited with his wife and two children last month, said he paid $5,500 to bring all three family members to the border. He spent $8,000 a year ago when he made the journey alone.
“They traveled on a nice bus, with their own seats,” said the father, who described his family’s journey on the condition of anonymity because his wife now has a pending U.S. asylum claim.
A Guatemalan official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the express buses said the United States has been leaning on his government to crack down on the smuggling pipeline. But he said that the government’s strategies rely mostly on social media messaging — such as one with the hashtag #NoMigraciónIrregular — and that those approaches lack credibility alongside the personal testimonies of friends, relatives and neighbors who have completed the journey safely and with relative ease.

Critics of the Trump administration’s border policies allege that U.S. efforts to limit the number of migrants permitted to seek asylum each day at official ports of entry have forced the families to cross the border through remote desert areas.
But the conveyor belt system depicted in the reports indicates decisions about where the groups arrive are not made by the migrants but by smugglers looking for the best places to quickly deliver large numbers of their clients to U.S. agents.

The mass “give-ups” let migrants skip lines at official points of entry, and they can await processing on the U.S. side of the border, where it’s safer.
The pattern has become so routine that U.S. officials say some large groups form their own queues as they present their documents to agents, as if they were waiting in the arrival hall of an international airport.
“They line up as if it’s some kind of regular immigration process, in single file, like they’re checking in,” said one U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the pattern. “It’s unbelievable.”
The number of migrants taken into custody in the Border Patrol’s El Paso sector has soared 434 percent in the past five months compared with the same period last year, CBP statistics show.

Marta Sánchez Soler, a sociologist and migrant rights activist in Mexico City, said the rapid-bus operators are part of a broader divergence in the way Central American groups reach the United States.
While Hondurans and Salvadorans have been joining caravans and staying in church-run shelters, Guatemalan families “are all trafficked,” she said.
“You won’t find many Guatemalans in the shelters,” said Sánchez Soler.
In December, two Guatemalan children died in CBP’s El Paso sector after arriving with large groups. Their autopsy reports have not been released, but initial assessments indicate the children might have contracted the flu or another illness. In response to the deaths, CBP has expanded medical screenings for all minors in custody. Hospital referrals have nearly tripled during the past five months, the agency says.

The border security compromise reached between President Trump and House Democrats last month includes $415 million for improved migrant care and treatment, including funds to construct a new processing center in El Paso to alleviate dangerous overcrowding in holding cells there.
Agents took in 700 migrants in El Paso one night in early March, including groups of 252 and 112. Among them was an unaccompanied 2-year-old.
The lower Rio Grande Valley of South Texas has long been the main entry point for Central American migrants, opposite the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. But warring factions of the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas criminal organization have left the area with a fearsome reputation for kidnapping, rape and abuse, one reason the caravans have conspicuously avoided those areas, despite a shorter distance to the U.S. border.
Gunmen stopped a bus traveling through Tamaulipas this month and abducted 19 migrants, loading them into pickup trucks, Mexican authorities said. Another 25 migrants went missing after a similar incident in late February.
Such incidents appear to be one reason the express-bus operators veer away from that part of northern Mexico, opting for longer routes to the El Paso area and points further west into New Mexico and Arizona.

U.S. officials say they have given Mexican authorities specific information on the location of ranches and compounds in the southern states of Chiapas and Oaxaca, as well as the names of individuals who appear to be coordinating the buses.
One staging location U.S. law enforcement officials have identified is a property ringed by a seven-foot concrete block wall close to the center of Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas, where a fleet of gray buses loads up as many 150 migrants at a time, documents show. A cargo truck loaded with Guatemalan migrants crashed along a highway near the city this month, killing 25 and leaving more than 30 injured, authorities said.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who took office in December, has sought a contrast with his predecessor’s immigration policies, promising to be more welcoming to Central American migrants. More quietly, his administration has been cooperating with an experimental U.S. policy to make Central Americans wait in Mexico until their U.S. asylum cases are settled.
Immigration enforcement at the Guatemala-Mexico border remains light, and the documents of Central Americans traveling on Mexican highways are not systematically checked, according to the U.S. reports.
“The buses are routinely inspected by Mexican authorities for contraband, however, authorities do not conduct immigration checks,” the documents state.
Mexico is seeking more details about the bus routes and operators, according to one senior government official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe what has become a new source of tension with the Trump administration.
“If they sent the information, they did it through the wrong channels,” the official said.
Mexican Interior Minister Olga Sánchez Cordero, the country’s top immigration official, met with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in Washington last month to discuss the soaring border numbers.
Sánchez Cordero told The Post that her government wants a more intimate intelligence-sharing relationship with the United States to target traffickers more aggressively, affirming that Mexico has “already arrested several” smugglers, without providing further detail.
“We’ve only been in office for [three] months,” she said. “We want truly close collaboration with the United States.”

[jhu72]

It's all about Bad Hombres.

Sure it is.

[CU88]

9 YO US citizen child, with valid ID, held 36 hours.

CBP officers accused her of lying about her identity. Officers told the girl she didn’t look like the girl in her passport card picture.

9 years old!

https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/ ... 37381.html

We all know which "type" of US citizen the r's want to protect.

So proud to be an American....

[youthathletics]

It's all about Bad Hombres.

Sure it is.

Roll your eyes at these 16 family members who were dismembered.

You can keep rolling them, 81 pounds of cocaine seized.

Keep on rolling them: stabbed 100 times

But we are told the deadly drugs only come thru legal points of entry....keep em' rolling: 30,000 Fentanyl Pills enter through Tohono O’odham.

For the life of me I cannot understand how you and others are completely fine with the crap the heads North into our country, especially when every president in the last 50 years has tried to solve it.

[youthathletics]

9 YO US citizen child, with valid ID, held 36 hours.

CBP officers accused her of lying about her identity. Officers told the girl she didn’t look like the girl in her passport card picture.

9 years old!

https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/ ... 37381.html

We all know which "type" of US citizen the r's want to protect.

So proud to be an American....

Curious...what's it like being God CU88?

[Trinity]

https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na- ... story.html

US Marines are not amused.

[youthathletics]

Curious why the choice of "amused"...nothing of the sort in that article. The article revolved around budgetary issues and pulling troops away from already scheduled training exercises.

#FakeTrinityNews

[Trinity]

“Deploying troops to the border causes unacceptable risk,” says the Marine Commandant. That work better for you? Not Amused came to mind when I saw his pissed off face like a clenched fist.

[ToastDunk]

It's all about Bad Hombres.

Sure it is.

Roll your eyes at these 16 family members who were dismembered.

You can keep rolling them, 81 pounds of cocaine seized.

Keep on rolling them: stabbed 100 times

But we are told the deadly drugs only come thru legal points of entry....keep em' rolling: 30,000 Fentanyl Pills enter through Tohono O’odham.

For the life of me I cannot understand how you and others are completely fine with the dump the heads North into our country, especially when every president in the last 50 years has tried to solve it.

[a fan]

For the life of me I cannot understand how you and others are completely fine with the dump the heads North into our country

I think this view would have had a bit more meaning if you directed it at Trump and the Republicans during the two years that they could have done something about it. And intentionally did nothing about it. Just as I told you they would.

The R's are playing you, and making you think that "JHU72 and the Dems are in the way of fixing this".

It's working flawlessly. The R's get to do nothing. And your support for them is solidified.

[jhu72]

It's all about Bad Hombres.

Sure it is.

Roll your eyes at these 16 family members who were dismembered.

You can keep rolling them, 81 pounds of cocaine seized.

Keep on rolling them: stabbed 100 times

But we are told the deadly drugs only come thru legal points of entry....keep em' rolling: 30,000 Fentanyl Pills enter through Tohono O’odham.

For the life of me I cannot understand how you and others are completely fine with the dump the heads North into our country, especially when every president in the last 50 years has tried to solve it.

Maybe if ICE wasn't so busy arresting illegals with no history of criminal behavior they would do better arresting / detaining / stopping the ones on your list!! It is a numbers game, they are being pressed for numbers, so they go after the low hanging fruit. TRUMP DOESN"T CARE ABOUT BAD HOMBRES - he wants people like you to think he is doing something, its all a big political game. When you want to stop playing, let him know.

[Trinity]

Those private prisons don’t fill themselves.

[old salt]

9 YO US citizen child, with valid ID, held 36 hours.

CBP officers accused her of lying about her identity. Officers told the girl she didn’t look like the girl in her passport card picture.

9 years old!

https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/ ... 37381.html

We all know which "type" of US citizen the r's want to protect.

So proud to be an American....

Curious...what's it like being God CU88?

Hammer CBP for doing their job & hammer them again if they miss a child trafficked :

The girl showed NBC San Diego her passport card, which has a picture of her from when she was much younger.

Update your passport picture.

[youthathletics]

Maybe if ICE wasn't so busy arresting illegals with no history of criminal behavior they would do better arresting / detaining / stopping the ones on your list!! It is a numbers game, they are being pressed for numbers, so they go after the low hanging fruit. TRUMP DOESN"T CARE ABOUT BAD HOMBRES - he wants people like you to think he is doing something, its all a big political game. When you want to stop playing, let him know.

You are trolling me now...got it, otherwise you are on record openly and freely being comfortable with all things illegal coming across our border. I suppose next you'll say its okay for the mexican cartels to use the Tohono O’odham territory, so long as they pay them in drugs to feel good about it.

For the life of me I cannot understand how you and others are completely fine with the dump the heads North into our country

I think this view would have had a bit more meaning if you directed it at Trump and the Republicans during the two years that they could have done something about it. And intentionally did nothing about it. Just as I told you they would.

The R's are playing you, and making you think that "JHU72 and the Dems are in the way of fixing this".

It's working flawlessly. The R's get to do nothing. And your support for them is solidified.

I intentionally qualified my original post to include the past presidents of the recent 50 years...you for some reason left that very important fact out to try and spin this into only an R/Trump issue....it is not, but you two know this. And I have been on record as saying the R's eff'd this one up, I am not giving anyone a pass. I just would like to see it solved...even remotely.

[old salt]

In the article '72 linked the only example of arrests of undocumented aliens were those caught in conjunction with the arrest of targeted convicted criminals, which would require no increased ICE manpower.

Plus it pointed out that deportations were lower than previous year due to the diversion of ICE agents to deal with the border crisis of family units & UAC.

The new numbers released Thursday also show a drop in the overall number of arrests made by ICE agents. The 11,178 undocumented immigrants arrested in December mark the lowest monthly total of the Trump administration, which Asher said is a direct result of the migrant caravans that have been flooding the southwest border.

[jhu72]

Maybe if ICE wasn't so busy arresting illegals with no history of criminal behavior they would do better arresting / detaining / stopping the ones on your list!! It is a numbers game, they are being pressed for numbers, so they go after the low hanging fruit. TRUMP DOESN"T CARE ABOUT BAD HOMBRES - he wants people like you to think he is doing something, its all a big political game. When you want to stop playing, let him know.

You are trolling me now...got it, otherwise you are on record openly and freely being comfortable with all things illegal coming across our border. I suppose next you'll say its okay for the mexican cartels to use the Tohono O’odham territory, so long as they pay them in drugs to feel good about it.

For the life of me I cannot understand how you and others are completely fine with the dump the heads North into our country

I think this view would have had a bit more meaning if you directed it at Trump and the Republicans during the two years that they could have done something about it. And intentionally did nothing about it. Just as I told you they would.

The R's are playing you, and making you think that "JHU72 and the Dems are in the way of fixing this".

It's working flawlessly. The R's get to do nothing. And your support for them is solidified.

I intentionally qualified my original post to include the past presidents of the recent 50 years...you for some reason left that very important fact out to try and spin this into only an R/Trump issue....it is not, but you two know this. And I have been on record as saying the R's eff'd this one up, I am not giving anyone a pass. I just would like to see it solved...even remotely.

You have no idea what you are talking about in regards to what I support or don't support.

[a fan]

You are trolling me now...got it, otherwise you are on record openly and freely being comfortable with all things illegal coming across our border. I suppose next you'll say its okay for the mexican cartels to use the Tohono O’odham territory, so long as they pay them in drugs to feel good about it.

Nope. I'm saying that this was the reason Trump and his R Congress were elected. He was supposed to fix this. He didn't.

I intentionally qualified my original post to include the past presidents of the recent 50 years...you for some reason left that very important fact out to try and spin this into only an R/Trump issue..

I'm not spinning anything. I'm pointing at the scoreboard and telling you: who is in charge of the country right now, today?

But more to my point, you're being played, and you know it.

They pass three enormous spending bills totally $2.7 Trillion in new spending, and you're trying to tell me that "whoops, Trump and the R's forgot to add border wall spending in those bills. Not once. Not twice. But three times. And it was just a mistake that that happened."

Come on. It was intentionally left out. Trump doesn't want to fix this problem. He wants a fight.

And you're buying the buffalo bagels.

[jhu72]

In the article '72 linked the only example of arrests of undocumented aliens were those caught in conjunction with the arrest of targeted convicted criminals, which would require no increased ICE manpower.

Plus it pointed out that deportations were lower than previous year due to the diversion of ICE agents to deal with the border crisis of family units & UAC.

The new numbers released Thursday also show a drop in the overall number of arrests made by ICE agents. The 11,178 undocumented immigrants arrested in December mark the lowest monthly total of the Trump administration, which Asher said is a direct result of the migrant caravans that have been flooding the southwest border.

Sorry, you can't spin this into some side effect of the way ICE is doing their job. The article clearly says ICE has been instructed to pursue all illegals regardless of criminal activities, past or present, based on the DHS directive of February 2017.