‘This is an invasion, our military is waiting for you,’ Trump warns ‘migrant caravan’
As a thousands-strong ‘caravan’ of Central American migrants makes its way to the US border, President Trump warned the migrants to turn back, and promised them “our military is waiting for you” at the border.
“Many Gang Members and some very bad people are mixed into the Caravan heading to our Southern Border,” Trump tweeted on Monday, before addressing the migrants directly: “Please go back, you will not be admitted into the United States unless you go through the legal process. This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you!”
Trump’s tweet comes as the Pentagon reportedly prepares to deploy some 5,000 troops to the border, where they will bolster the existing National Guard and Customs and Border Patrol presence there.
It also comes one day after Defense Secretary James Mattis announced that the military has already begun moving equipment, including concrete barriers, to positions along the US’ 2,000 mile border with Mexico.
Mattis approved a request from Trump last week to send troops to the border, but was expected at the time to deploy only around 800 troops.
MIgrants wait in line for food donations in San Pedro Tapanatepec, Mexico © Reuters / Ueslei Marcelino
Trump has promised to take harsh action against the approaching caravan several times over the last few weeks. The President first threatened to cut off foreign aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador if they failed to stop migrants leaving for the US. Trump then warned the migrants to turn around in a similar tweet last Thursday, again asking them to apply for citizenship legally “like millions of others are doing.”
The caravan’s journey began in poverty-stricken Honduras almost three weeks ago. On its journey north, the caravan swelled in numbers to around 7,000. Many of the migrants have split off from the main group, and some have turned back, leaving around 4,000 still trudging towards the US.
Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto offered some of these migrants a chance at immigrating to Mexico on Friday, an offer that was rejected by the bulk of the group. “Our goal is not to remain in Mexico,” one Honduran migrant told AP. “Our goal is to make it to the US. We want passage, that’s all.”
Upon reaching the border, the migrants will most likely not be met with heavily armed US troops. The Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law dating back to the 1870s, forbids the military from engaging in law enforcement on US soil, unless authorized by Congress. The troops will therefore likely provide reconnaissance, logistics, and assistance to Customs and Border Patrol agents.
In the runup to next week’s midterm elections, Trump has fought to keep the caravan’s progress in the spotlight. The president has used that spotlight to bash Democrats for failing to support his tough immigration proposals, and has called the caravan a “great midterm issue for Republicans.”
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3RD MIGRANT WAVE HEADS TO U.S. FROM EL SALVADOR
Group of 300 Salvadorians bound for U.S. southern border despite warnings from government
Reuters – OCTOBER 28, 2018
SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) – A new group of migrants gathered and left from the capital of El Salvador on Sunday, headed for the United States after thousands of other Central Americans began similar journeys in recent weeks, angering U.S. President Donald Trump.
The group of more than 300 Salvadorans that left San Salvador on Sunday came together after thousands of Hondurans in mid-October left their country in a large group, becoming an international news story and a key issue in the U.S. congressional elections.
A second group of Hondurans was moving through Guatemala last week, and at one point numbered more than 1,000 people before beginning to fragment.
People walk in a caravan of migrants departing from El Salvador en route to the United States, in San Salvador, El Salvador, October 28, 2018. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas
Trump and his fellow Republicans have sought to make immigration a major issue before the Nov. 6 elections, in which the party is battling to keep control of Congress.
The Salvadoran migrants organized using social networks like Facebook and WhatsApp over the last couple of weeks, inspired by the group of mostly Hondurans currently crossing Mexico.
Salvadoran police traveled with the group on Sunday as they left San Salvador, the migrants carrying backpacks and water bottles and protecting themselves from the hot sun with hats. Some mothers pushed their children in strollers.
Several migrants, gathered by the capital’s ‘Savior of the World’ statue before leaving, said they were headed to the United States.
“We’re asking the all-powerful to look after us, to guide us, to free us from all that is bad,” shouted Hernan Quinteros, 49, a driver who urged his fellow travelers to tie up their shoes ahead of the long trip.
El Salvador’s left-wing government said it had solidarity with the migrants and respected their right to mobilize, but urged them not to risk their lives on the way.
Illegal migrants in Europe ‘need to go home’ – Czech PM
File Photo: Czechs march during an anti-immigration rally, 2015 © Reuters / David W Cerny
The Czech prime minister has called for the return to their home countries of hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants currently in Europe, suggesting funds could be spent on a Marshall Plan to help improve African economies.
“There are 700,000 illegal migrants,” Andrej Babis said in an interview with The Guardian newspaper. “They need to go home.”
Babis has long railed against the implementation of EU-imposed migrant quotas, along with the leaders of neighboring Slovakia, Hungary and Poland – collectively known as the Visegrad Group. He has previously labeled the quotas “absurd” and “not effective.”
At the height of the migrant crisis in 2015, approximately two million non-EU citizens were believed to be present in member states. While many of these were refugees fleeing Syria’s devastating civil war, thousands also made the journey as economic migrants from Africa.
While the number of these illegals has now fallen to 618,780, according to 2017 statistics from Eurostat, Babis believes both economic migrants and refugees should return home.
These people should stay home and we should help them in Africa. The people around Syria… they would like to return home.
Rather than an expanded budget for the EU’s border agency Frontex, Babis thinks national governments should instead protect their own borders and coastlines.
“Smugglers made €5.7 billion in 2016 and we have to stop it,” he said.
READ MORE: We are anti-migration government, whether Brussels likes it or not – Hungary’s FM
Babis, along with Hungary’s Victor Orban, has been skeptical of an expanded Frontex, believing it to be a power grab by Brussels to take border control away from states on the bloc’s frontier.
Instead, Babis suggests that the EU should make funds available to help develop African countries like the Marshall Plan, the US aid initiative that helped rebuild Western Europe after World War Two.
This, Babis believes, would help convince potential migrants to stay in their own countries.
“They have their culture, we have our culture,” he said. “They have their values, but we want to keep [our] values.”
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