Archive for the ‘Migrant Crisis’ Category

The Migrant Crisis Isnt Just At The Border, It Stretches …

It doesnt matter how the Biden administration tries to spin it, there is undeniably a crisis underway at the southwest border. The number of illegal border crossings is up 100 percent over this time last year, and at this rate apprehensions of illegal immigrants will surpass all of 2018, 2019, and 2020 combined. As of this writing, a record number of unaccompanied migrant teens are in federal custody, with hundreds more arriving every day.

The Washington Post reports that more than 8,500 minors are in shelters run by the Department of Health and Human Services, and another 3,500 are in U.S. Border Patrol stations facilities that are basically concrete holding cells, not designed for minors or families, and not intended to house anyone for more than 72 hours. As of now, however, minors are being held for an average of 107 hours, in violation of federal law, because HHS has nowhere to place them.

The largest number of migrants held in these Border Patrol facilities during the Trump administration was 2,600 in June 2019, when President Trump was denounced by Democrats and the corporate press for putting kids in cages. The press is now predictably silent, and Democrats deny there is even a crisis.

But that, of course, has been as predictable as the crisis itself. President Biden came into office and signed a raft of executive orders that ended key Trump-era policies that had helped reduce illegal border-crossing. The effect of that shift has been profound. From the Rio Grande to Tegucigalpa, word has gone out that now is the time to migrate north, that if you can get into the United States, Biden will let you stay.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador acknowledged as much after a virtual meeting with Biden on March 1, saying, They see him as the migrant president, and so many feel theyre going to reach the United States. Mexican officials are now worried that Biden administration policies are creating a boon for organized crime, which increasingly traffics in migrants, charging each one thousands to cross the U.S.-Mexico border. Migrants have become a commodity, one Mexican official told Reuters this week.

Cartel-associated smuggling networks are making huge profits charging migrants, most of them from Central America, for passage through Mexico and into the U.S. As in previous migrant surges, smugglers commonly referred to as coyotes are advising people to bring children with them, even offering discounted rates for adults crossing with children.

The reason for the discount is simple: An adult with a child makes a smugglers job easier. Instead of trying to evade Border Patrol, adults with children simply turn themselves in to the nearest Border Patrol agents and claim asylum. In some cases, the adult is not actually the parent of the child he is traveling with, a practice that was well-documented during the 2019 border crisis.

Under the Biden administrations new border policies, which mirror the Obama-eras catch-and-release procedures, most of those claiming asylum will be released into the United States after a short time with instructions to appear before an immigration judge. This creates an enormous incentive for desperate people in Central America seeking a better life, but also enormous incentives for cartels and smuggling networks to profit off the flow of migrants. Indeed, cartels along the border have developed highly-sophisticated systems for tracking migrant payments, with most of their customers remaining in a form of debt bondage even after theyre residing in the states.

But thats just one end of the problem. By the time Central American migrants get to northern Mexico, its very difficult to prevent their crossing into the U.S., given the resources and incentives of the cartels.

The other end of the problem is in the sending countries in Central America, the so-called Northern Triangle of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. The corporate press and lawmakers of both parties most often focus on the poverty and gang violence in Central America but miss a more important aspect, which is the extent of official corruption in the governments of these countries. That corruption is directly tied to drug trafficking and the transnational cartels that are helping drive illegal immigration on the border.

For example, in the scrum of headlines about the royal family and President Joe Bidens dogs this week, you might have missed an important story that bears directly on all of this: The president of Honduras was implicated in a massive drug-trafficking scheme and is allegedly in the pay of transnational drug cartels.

At the opening of a trial for accused Honduran drug trafficker Geovanny Fuentes Ramrez in New York on Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacob Gutwillig said Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernndez was an integral part of Fuentes Ramrezs trafficking operation. His operations thrived because of his connections, Gutwillig said. Mayors, congressmen, military generals, police chiefs, even the current president of Honduras. The defendant bribed them all.

One of the witnesses who will testify during the trial, added Gutwillig, was present when Hernndez said he wanted to shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos and flood the United States with cocaine.

This isnt the first time Hernndezs name has come up in a high-profile federal trial. During a 2019 trial that led to the conviction of his brother, Juan Antonio Hernndez, the Honduran president was accused of accepting more than $1 million in bribes from the now-imprisoned former head of the Sinaloa Cartel, infamous Mexican drug trafficker Joaqun El Chapo Guzmn.

Hernndez has long denied any involvement in drug trafficking, although a filing by prosecutors in the Fuentes Ramrez case confirmed he is under investigation by U.S. authorities, according to the Associated Press.

The reason all this matters to the migrant crisis underway at the border is that, to put it bluntly, putatively sovereign states like Honduras are in a state of collapse. Ordinary people in these countries, encouraged by the Biden administration, are making a rational and reasonable choice to travel north and get into the United States by any means possible.

As countries like Honduras continue to implode under the weight of corruption and collusion with cartels, people in those countries will keep coming north. Turning them away, as the Trump administration did, is only a partial fix. Allowing them in, as the Biden administration is doing, enriches cartels by providing them a nearly unlimited supply of paying customers (and victims). It also creates a humanitarian crisis in South Texas and other border states, as were now seeing.

In the long run, the United States cant continue its long-standing policy of benign neglect of our southern neighbors. The chaos and corruption that plague those countries will, one way or another, make its way to us eventually. At that point, it will be too late to stop an illegal immigration crisis that wont number in the tens or even hundreds of thousands, but the millions.

Photo U.S. Customs and Border Protection

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The Migrant Crisis Isnt Just At The Border, It Stretches ...

Trump slams migrant crisis; Biden administration declares border is closed – Boston Herald

The border crisis has sparked renewed criticism from former President Donald Trump and a promise from President Biden that hell travel south to see the migrant mess for himself.

Both spoke late Sunday after U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas declared the border is closed.

Trump, from his 45 Office email account, ripped Mayorkas for what he called a pathetic, clueless performance on Sunday morning news shows.

Even someone of Mayorkas limited abilities should understand that if you provide Catch-and-Release to the worlds illegal aliens then the whole world will come, Trump said of the migration flood.

Trump also lashed out at Biden for what he called a gag order on Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

They must immediately complete the wall, which can be done in a matter of weeks they should never have stopped it. They are causing death and human tragedy, Trump said.

He added the flow of migrants is allowing drugs human and sex trafficking to mix in with the migrants encouraging crimes against humanity.

He added: Our Country is being destroyed!

Biden, according to a White House pool report, said when asked if hes thinking of going to the border: At some point I will, yes.

When asked why isnt the message to migrants to stay home resonating and can more be done, Biden responded: A lot more. Were in the process of doing it now, including making sure that we re-establish what existed before, which was they can stay in place and make their case from their home country.

Mayorkas spoke on four Sunday talk shows as conditions at the U.S.-Mexico border worsen.

Fox News reported Sunday that border agents in the key Rio Grande Valley Sector are processing and releasing migrants who claim asylum without issuing a Notice to Appear.

Mayorkas said he is trying to roll out orderly systems in Mexico and Central America to discourage would-be migrants from traveling to the U.S. border. That is similar in some ways to what the Trump administration did to stem the tide of illegal immigration during the pandemic.

Biden quickly moved to undo some of Trumps anti-immigration measures right after being elected. It was a rollback interpreted by some as a signal to travel to the United States.

We have seen large numbers of migration in the past. We know how to address it. We have a plan. We are executing on our plan and we will succeed, Mayorkas said.

But, he added, it takes time and is especially challenging and difficult now because of the Trump administrations moves. So we are rebuilding the system as we address the needs of vulnerable children who arrived at our borders.

Congressional Republicans blame Biden for policies they say are encouraging a new wave of immigrants. Mayorkas, and many Democrats, says fault lies with Trump and his administration, which they argue left behind an inhumane and inadequate system to deal with influx.

Associated Press material was used in this report.

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Trump slams migrant crisis; Biden administration declares border is closed - Boston Herald

Tamara Keith and Amy Walter on Biden and the growing migrant crisis – PBS NewsHour

Amy Walter:

Well, you are exactly right, Judy. It's a marked change from the last four years.

But what I found really interesting too is, this the way that the Biden administration is selling the COVID package is as much a response to 2009 as it was to 2020. And that is that there are a lot of folks, including, obviously, the president himself, who were there for the last big rescue package.

And at that time now, looking back, Democrats say, we didn't go big enough. We went for $813 billion. We should have gone bigger, because that was not enough of an economic stimulus to bring the economy back. It was a much slower recovery. We're not going to make that mistake again.

But, this time, Joe Biden has something that Barack Obama didn't. He obviously has fewer Democrats in the Senate, but the Democrats are much more ideologically homogeneous. There are fewer conservative Democrats, moderate Democrats, especially fiscally conservative Democrats.

And so they could go for a bigger package. And the second thing that they look back on in 2009 and wish they had done differently, which was selling it. That is to Tam's point, to go out there and brag all the time, every day. They feel that they didn't do that well enough in 2010, never really embraced the economy and its comeback.

And it put then-President Obama on a back foot for much of his tenure, even going into the 2012 selection.

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Tamara Keith and Amy Walter on Biden and the growing migrant crisis - PBS NewsHour

Girl, two, dies after being rescued from migrant boat in Canaries – The Guardian

A two-year-old girl from Mali who was rescued from a migrant boat and resuscitated on a dock in the Canary Islands last week has died in hospital, becoming the latest victim of the perilous Atlantic route from Africa to Europe.

The girl was one of 52 people travelling on a boat that had left the city of Dakhla in Western Sahara bound for the Spanish archipelago.

The boat which was carrying 29 women, 14 men and nine children was found last Tuesday by Spains maritime rescue service. Many of the occupants were showing signs of hypothermia and dehydration after being at sea for five days.

They were brought ashore at the port of Arguinegun on Gran Canaria, where Red Cross workers raced to save the girl, who was unconscious and whose heart had stopped. Pictures of their frantic efforts to resuscitate the toddler appeared in the Spanish media, providing a further reminder of the dangers of the Atlantic route, which has claimed 19 lives so far this year.

The toddler was taken to the intensive care unit of a childrens hospital in the islands capital, Las Palmas, where she died on Sunday.

Spains prime minister, Pedro Snchez, described her death as as a cry that touches all our consciences, adding: There are no words to describe so much pain.

ngel Vctor Torres, the regional president of the Canary Islands, tweeted: We saw the painful images of her arrival on the islands and today, her death. [She] is the face of the humanitarian drama that migration represents She was looking for a better life. She was two years old.

The toddlers death comes a little over four years after the body of Samuel Kabamba a four-year-old from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who died trying to reach Europe with his mother washed up on a beach in southern Spain.

The deaths of Samuel and his mother, Vronique Nzazi, prompted calls for greater action to reduce the risks of migration, and also gave rise to comparisons with Alan Kurdi, the two-year-old Syrian refugee whose death in 2015 briefly forced the world to focus on the human cost of the migration crisis.

More than 40,300 people arrived in Spain by sea last year, with more than 25,000 of them arriving in the Canary Islands, causing the archipelagos reception infrastructure to buckle under the strain.

Conflicts, land border closures forced by the Covid pandemic and increased controls in some north African countries have led smuggling gangs to reactivate the long and dangerous Atlantic crossing. At least 593 people died en route to the Canaries in 2020, compared with 210 in 2019 and 45 in 2018.

Last month, Spanish police released photographs and video footage of people trying to reach Europe from north Africa by hiding in containers of broken bottles and in sealed bags of toxic ash.

Ministers from Greece, Italy, Spain, Cyprus and Malta met in Athens on Sunday to reiterate calls for solidarity in managing mass migration to the EU, insisting the burden had to be shared more justly with other countries in the bloc.

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Girl, two, dies after being rescued from migrant boat in Canaries - The Guardian

Inside Texas Politics: Congressman believes it will take more than $4 billion to solve border crisis – KCENTV.com

The crisis is something that emanates from years of ignoring the needs in these countries that are south of the border, said Rep. Al Green, R-Houston.

Houston Rep. Al Green says he sees both a crisis and a challenge in the recent surge along the Texas-Mexico border.

The challenge, the Democrat said, is trying to do what they can to help families, particularly the thousands of migrant children.

Immigration experts say the current border surge is primarily composed of migrants from Central America, as opposed to Mexico.

The crisis is something that emanates from years of ignoring the needs in these countries that are south of the border, he said on Inside Texas Politics. This President [Biden] has said that he needs $4 billion to get to the root cause of these problems. I think he probably needs more than $4 billion to be quite candid.

The congressman said hes been to Central America and has seen the deep-rooted problems first-hand.

Bill aims to make it easier to receive a protective order

State Rep. Victoria Neave said the 2019 Texas legislative session was transformative for sexual assault victims.

The Democrat told Inside Texas Politics that her legislation, the Lavinia Masters Act, has helped decreased the rape kit backlog by 80%.

She's aiming for the same success in 2021, though she knows it wont be easy with other top legislative issues, including the pandemic, winter storm power crisis, and massive Texas budget shortfall.

This session, the Democrat is leading the effort for more funding.

Neave has introduced legislation that would lengthen the statute of limitations to report workplace sexual harassment. Another of her bills, HB 39, would make it easier for people to receive protective orders.

State senator explains why he's pushing for election reform

State Sen. Paul Bettencourt scoffs at suggestions that the spate of election reform bills being debated in Austin are an attempt to disenfranchise Democratic voters.

There is no need for that, he says, because the GOP not only won in Texas during the 2020 election, they won big.

We had record turnout, highest level and also the best percentages of turnout in 30 years. So, these criticisms arent based in fact, he said on Inside Texas Politics.

Bettencourt, R-Houston, filed seven bills this session related to election reform.

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Inside Texas Politics: Congressman believes it will take more than $4 billion to solve border crisis - KCENTV.com