Commentary: The Aiding and Abetting of Migrant Caravans

by Hector Garza

 

The crisis at the southern border is no accident. It’s the intentional result of deliberate efforts by liberal activists to encourage illegal immigration on a massive scale.

Right now, the “mother of all caravans” is reportedly forming in Central America, with the Mexican government predicting that more than 20,000 people will eventually join the human convoy as it traverses thousands of miles in the rising springtime temperatures of Mexico on its way to the U.S. border.

The anticipated mass of illegal immigrants in that caravan will only exacerbate an already-dire situation for our Border Patrol agents, whose resources have already been stretched to the “breaking point” by a surge of border-crossers. More than 100,000 illegal immigrants were apprehended in March alone, and at the current pace, at least 1.2 million people will have crossed the border illegally by the end of 2019.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said that DHS is treating the situation as a “Cat 5 hurricane disaster.”

Even Barack Obama’s right-hand man on immigration recently labeled the situation as a crisis.

“By anyone’s definition, by any measure, right now we have a crisis at our southern border,” former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said, noting that “there were 4,000 apprehensions in one day alone this past week.”

While the surge isn’t being fueled exclusively by caravans, a large proportion of the illegal immigrants now being apprehended at the border arrive in “family groups” – a designation that Border Patrol agents say is vulnerable to exploitation by human smugglers pretending to be the parents of minor children in order to gain faster and easier access to the U.S.

In just the first five months of fiscal year 2019, at least 70 groups of 100 or more illegal immigrants have been apprehended, compared to 13 in FY 2018 and just two in FY 2017.

We are also experiencing an epidemic of “asylum” claims because most of the illegal immigrants now arriving at the border have been coached to recite specific statements that trigger automatic asylum hearings. Those hearings are often scheduled for months or even years in the future, and in the meantime, the claimants are able to roam freely in American communities.

The outside assistance that is helping illegal immigrants who arrive individually or in small groups to navigate loopholes in our immigration laws, however, is nothing compared to the logistical demands of organizing thousands of migrants into a single caravan. Every person in a migrant caravan needs food, water, and other basic necessities for the duration of a journey that can last weeks or months, and requires them to endure some of the most inhospitable terrain and climates known to man. Healthcare, tents, and other provisions also cost money.

Since the migrants themselves are said to be fleeing economic deprivation in their home countries, the money to keep the caravans moving must come from somewhere else.

Videos such as the one uncovered last year showing handfuls of cash being handed out to members of a previous migrant caravan speak for themselves. But who’s doing the organizing?

The New York Times would have you believe that the mass exodus is happening organically, suggesting in an October article that word of mouth turned a group that originally numbered less than 200 migrants into a full-fledged caravan of more than 4,000 people. While the Times acknowledged that unnamed “advocacy groups” had sponsored previous caravans as a way of drawing attention to their cause, it noted that “no group has claimed responsibility for organizing [that particular] caravan.”

The Times, however, is only partially correct. While no single group is in charge of orchestrating the migrant crisis, groups such as Pueblo Sin Fronteras, or “People Without Borders,” have worked feverishly behind the scenes to keep the caravans coming – a fact that even The Washington Post and L.A. Times had to admit.

A separate investigative report revealed that Pueblo Sin Fronteras is linked with “the international Quaker movement, historical Democratic Party donors, U.S. government bureaucrats, and perhaps even a senior Mexican diplomat.”

Federal Election Commission (FEC) data cited in the same report found that many members of another open-borders advocacy group, Casa de los Amigos, were also donors to Democratic Party candidates, including John Kerry, Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer, and the Democratic National Committee.

The Democratic Party, in turn, directly assists the activist campaign to overwhelm America’s southern border. In Washington, congressional Democrats have consistently obstructed any and all measures to devote more resources to border security, and at the state and local level, Democrat elected officials are directly undermining federal immigration enforcement with “sanctuary” policies.

President Trump is doing everything in his power to secure the U.S. southern border, but Democrats and shadowy activist groups are working behind his back to fulfill their open-borders agenda.

The “mother of all caravans” isn’t just materializing out of the ether. It’s just the most recent wave of an invasion that is being aided and abetted by liberal activists who believe that subverting U.S. law is the best way to achieve their radical policy objectives.

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Hector Garza is Vice President of the National Border Patrol Council.
Photo “Hector Garza” by Hector Garza.