Deutsche Welle – NOVEMBER 23, 2018
But most migrants are determined to reach the US. Tobias Käufer reports from Tijuana.
Jose Rodriguez from Siguatepeque in Honduras has been carrying his white flag for more than 3,000 kilometers now. “I have two kids in Honduras. I want them to have a better life,” the 29-year-old tells DW. The white flag has become the symbol of the migrant caravan, which started from the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula on October 12 with the aim of reaching the US. “The flag symbolizes that we mean no harm, and that we have good intentions,” Rodriguez explains.
On Thursday, Jose Rodriguez, his companions and their flags reach El Chaparral in Tijuana, the main border point from Tijuana, Mexico, into the US. That day, 300 migrants are camped here, demanding that US authorities accept their requests for asylum. “We can’t wait any longer,” the migrants shout, “let us cross.”
Mexican security forces, meanwhile, have cordoned off the area and blocked the main access road, causing traffic chaos in the Mexican border town of Tijuana because cross-border traffic is especially heavy on Thanksgiving, the US holiday.
Many Tijuana locals, meanwhile, are fed up with the migrants. Some sport red President Donald Trump-like baseball caps reading “Make Tijuana great again”. Last Sunday, about 1,000 locals gathered to protest against the influx if migrants, chanting “No to invasion, yes to migration.” Many Mexicans cheered them on. Local media report that an additional 7,000 migrants are set to arrive in the coming week.
The 5,000 migrants who have already made it to Tijuana with the first caravan from Honduras are struggling, the atmosphere is tense.
“It’s chaos, Jose Rodriguez says. “There is no coordination, no one is leading us. We all just start running around when a rumor starts circulating,” he adds.
Heavy rains have made conditions in the camp even worse. The Benito Juarez sports arena, where the makeshift camp has been set up, is turning into a muddy swamp. Most migrants have to sleep in the open, and many are sick. The catastrophic conditions are particularly hard on the 1,000 children there.caravan
Meanwhile, the regional government is doing what it can to integrate the migrants into the local economy. Luis Rodolfo Enriquez runs a kind of job agency near the emergency camp.
“In the first couple of days, only a few dozen came to find out about vacancies,” he tells DW. But soon, he adds, they came to trust him, and more migrants inquired about work. There are some 10,000 unfilled vacancies in Tijuana. Enriquez is convinced that half the migrants can get a job if they want. He says people with and without qualifications have a chance of getting work.
Although Rodolfo Enriquez’ recruitment agency is an improvised operation, everything is well-organized. There are plastic chairs and wooden tables. Employers can meet potential workers, and down the hall, immigration councilors issue temporary work permits. All over the city, shops display signs reading “staff wanted.”.
Mexican authorities have been working hard to placate angry migrants demanding to enter the US. At the border crossing, one of them tells the migrants that Tijuana has plenty of job opportunities. But most migrants are determined to reach the US.
Jose Rodriguez remains optimistic that he will make it across the border, no matter how hard the circumstances. “I cannot give up hope, I want a better future for my children. That’s why I won’t give up.”
As night falls, tensions flare up in El Chaparral. A few dozen migrants insist on spending the night at the border crossing throughout the night.
While the migrants discuss their situation after nightfall, they watch as TV screens nearby show US President Donald Trump – subtitled in Spanish – explain that he plans to shut the entire US-Mexico border if the situation gets out of control.
This is followed by a report on Mexican TV that another group of migrants had left the makeshift camp in Mexico City. Their destination: The United States of America.
Will Racke | Daily Caller News Foundation – NOVEMBER 23, 2018
As of Thursday night, at least 5,000 recent arrivals were camped in Tijuana, which is serving as a staging ground for the migrants to apply for asylum in the U.S. City officials estimate as many as 1,200 migrants arrived from the nearby city of Mexicali in less than 24 hours between Tuesday night and Wednesday afternoon, straining temporary shelters that were already operating at capacity.
At least 2,000 more migrants are traveling in a second caravan currently moving north through the central Mexican states of Jalisco and Queretaro — most are expected to end up in Tijuana in the coming weeks. In response to the influx, Tijuana Mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum declared an international humanitarian crisis and blasted the federal government for allowing the migrants to concentrate in the city.
“They have categorically omitted and not complied with their legal obligations,” Gastelum said Thursday at a news conference, according to the Arizona Republic. “So we’re now asking them and international humanitarian aid groups to bring in and carry out humanitarian assistance.”
The Tijuana municipal government says it is spending about $27,000 per day to house and provide care to the caravan migrants in the city. Gastelum, who has drawn criticism for his tough rhetoric about the caravan, warned that he would not authorize more spending as additional migrants arrive.
“I will not compromise public services,” Gastelum said. “I will not spend Tijuanans’ money, I will not bring Tijuana into debt now, in the same way we haven’t done so these past two years.
Tijuana, a sprawling border city of about 1.6 million, has long been a waypoint for migrants of all stripes seeking to cross the southwest border. But it has never had to accommodate the sudden arrival of so many homeless Central Americans, who are now waiting indefinitely to apply for asylum at the U.S. ports of entry.
Nearly all of the caravan migrants are being sheltered in Tijuana’s Benito Juarez sports center. Officials say the center, which is already over capacity, cannot hold any more migrants while still maintaining even minimal safety and sanitary conditions.
As the temporary shelter has come to resemble a refugee camp, Tijuana officials say a lack of coordination with the federal government has hindered the on-the-ground response to the caravan.
“We were faced with the federal government and state government and municipal government all unclear on who would be in charge, and no one wanted to take care of this thing,” Vega said, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. “As the municipal government, we have to take care of these people, and we have to take care of our community.”
Trump on Thursday threatened to close the border altogether
By AFP
With US helicopters hovering overhead, a group made up mostly of men headed just after midday from the shelter they have been staying at since last week to the El Chaparral bridge around a kilometer (half a mile) away in Tijuana, just across the border from San Diego, California.
Trump on Thursday threatened to close the border altogether, having previously deployed nearly 6,000 troops to erect concrete barriers and razor-wire fences to deter what he has called an “invasion.”
“If we find that it gets to a level where we are going to lose control or where people are going to start getting hurt, we will close entry into the country for a period of time until we can get it under control,” Trump told reporters, before firing a warning to Mexico.
“The whole border. I mean the whole border,” he said, adding that “Mexico will not be able to sell their cars into the United States.”
Tensions rose at the border when a local official and a human rights activist tried to convince the migrants both of the benefits of remaining in Mexico, and to submit their US asylum requests through official channels.
“We don’t want to!” shouted the migrants before continuing on to the bridge.
“Let us cross now, we’re already desperate, we’ve left family in Honduras, we need to work,” said a man called Wilson.
Authorities in Tijuana set up a job fair in an attempt to recruit skilled workers amongst the migrants for the benefit of local companies, while Mexico’s migration agency has offered them temporary residency papers.
Some have taken advantage of the offers but others are simply determined to reach the US.
Since setting out more than a month ago, mostly from from Honduras, thousands of migrants — including many women and children — have covered about 4,400 kilometers (2,700 miles), either walking or hitchhiking, before the first groups began reaching Tijuana at the end of last week.
But there have been tensions since they started arriving at the border town, particularly in the shelter housing around 4,500 Central Americans.
The migrants are mostly fleeing poverty and unrest in Central America’s “Northern Triangle” — El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, where gang violence has fueled some of the highest murder rates in the world.
NOVEMBER 20, 2018
Today’s holiday rebroadcast includes never before seen Alex Jones footage and highlights with UK journalist Katie Hopkins discussing the Islamic invasion of Western Europe. Also, media analyst Mark Dice breaks down liberal lunacy and fake news. Furthermore, Paul Joseph Watson provides his expertise on the migration crisis in Europe and America. Happy Thanksgiving week from Infowars!
[Read Court Ruling HERE] Setting up, yet again, another likely higher court appeal/decision.
While a challenge was predictable, frustrating and likely to be spun up by media, the ruling only applies to aliens who gain illegal entry and request asylum.
Nothing in the ruling stops the hardened border enforcement and/or current expedited review and deportation program. In essence, keep the illegal aliens out and the judicial ruling is moot (until defeated in higher courts).
Though it might frustrate the left-wing media and the open borders crowd, no court can successfully demand the President of the United States to stop border enforcement. This is why it is critical to have a strong DHS Secretary focused on stopping illegal entry.
This ruling will obviously be appealed by the DOJ; and politically the Democrats realize, in the bigger picture, this ‘open-border’ narrative is not good for them. On its face this ruling is ridiculous as it eliminates/undermines the legal process for asylum requests by removing the distinction of illegal or unlawful conduct in the application process.
Anti-migrant sentiment is running high in Tijuana, as hundreds of locals shouting “no to the invasion” and “Mexico First”staged a protest rally on Sunday. Starting at a major traffic roundabout they marched north toward a makeshift shelter which now hosts thousands of migrants. The protesters carried placards reading “enough of uncontrolled migration” and “migrants yes, invaders no.”
Before the procession managed to reach Benito Juarez migrant camp, riot police officers were deployed to block them. Some brief scuffles followed but, according to local media, law enforcement officers managed to disperse the crowd without making any arrests.
Tensions in the city exploded last Wednesday when first clashes were reported between the newcomers and locals, that latter angry that migrants “illegally” forced their way into Mexico and now accumulate at the US border, posing a growing “security risk.” Responding to the public sentiment, Tijuana Mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum made clear that anyone who endangers public order will be deported.
“No city in the world is prepared to receive this –if I’m allowed– this avalanche,” he said, during a news conference at City Hall last week.
It is a tsunami. There is concern among all citizens of Tijuana.
Not all Tijuana locals oppose the influx of asylum seekers though. Just before the Sunday anti-caravan march began, a small demonstration was held in support of the Central Americans, condemning what they call “racism” and “discrimination.”
Some 3,200 Central American migrants had arrived in Tijuana over the past week, their last stop before attempting to cross into the United States. In the coming weeks the number of migrants in Tijuana is expected to reach 10,000 as thousands are heading to a city already stretched beyond its capacity to host the newcomers.
President Donald Trump, who has deployed thousands of troops at the border to reinforce the frontier with Mexico, said last week that the US, just like Tijuana, is “ill-prepared” to host such a migrant “invasion” and urged the Central Americans to “go home.” Those who try to cross the border illegally “will be detained or turned away,” the US president warned in another tweet.
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“We need people in our country but they have to come in legally and they have to have merit,” Trump told reporters on Friday, before departing for Paris.
The order comes after weeks of Trump promising to crack down on illegal immigration, as a caravan of several thousand migrants makes its way toward the US’ southern border from Central America. The caravan is currently around 600 miles from the United States.
The directive is a temporary measure, and circumvents current laws that state anyone who applies for asylum in the US is eligible to have their case heard, no matter whether they arrived legally or illegally. As such, it is likely to be challenged in federal courts.
Those denied asylum under the new order will still be able to apply for ‘withholding of removal’ – a limited form of asylum that doesn’t allow for green cards or family members to join the applicant; or asylum under the United Nations Convention Against Torture. In both cases, the applicant has to demostrate a credible threat if they were to return home.
It forms one part of the president’s latest efforts to tighten border security and clamp down on immigration. Before the midterm elections, Trump mulled ending birthright citizenship – the policy that ensures all children born on US soil are automatically citizens – by executive order.
“We’re the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years with all of those benefits,” Trump told Axios. “It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. And it has to end.”
Any executive order ending birthright citizenship would likely provoke a Constitutional debate and be challenged in the Supreme Court, as birthright citizenship is currently guaranteed under the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution.
In addition to policy changes, Trump has also beefed up the physical security of the US’ 2,000-mile border with Mexico.
Over 5,200 US troops have been sent to the border to erect razor-wire fences and provide surveillance and logistical support to the National Guardsmen and Customs and Border Patrol agents already there.
The president said last week that “anywhere between 10,000 and 15,000 military personnel” may be deployed to the border, if the current contingent is not enough.
Trump also underscored that anyone who does cross the US border illegally will be detained in “tent cities” and other immigration detention facilities, as “we’re not doing releases” anymore. Trump has been a long time critic of the Obama administration’s ‘catch and release’ policy, under which apprehended immigrants would be released and asked to return for a court hearing at a later date. Unsurprisingly, many do not.
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