by Jim Hoft November 26, 2018
After further review, yesterday’s ‘horrific’ picture of a woman with barefoot children running from the US border wall was a hoax. In the background of the picture a group of men are posing for one camera man and another is running towards another camera man. In other areas, people are just standing around. The woman with the children was just a photo-op:
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.
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