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| Courtesy Frontera.info |
The New York Times has reported new threats made by Trump regarding the Caravana Migrante and the southern border. At this moment I have not seen this reported in the Mexican News sources:
From MSN
New York Times - 10/25/18
Trump Considers Closing Southern Border To Migrants
"WASHINGTON — President Trump is considering taking executive action
to bar migrants, including asylum seekers, from entering the country
at the southern border, according to people familiar with the plan.
The effort would be the starkest indication yet of Mr. Trump’s
election-season push to play to his anti-immigrant base as his party
fights to keep control of Congress.
The proposal amounts to a sweeping use of presidential power to
fortify the border and impose the kind of aggressive immigration
restrictions and enforcement measures that Mr. Trump has made his
signature pursuit. The plan is expected to prompt a swift challenge in federal courts.
The
move would be the most drastic in a series of steps that Mr. Trump has
taken or threatened to take in recent days — including preparations
on Thursday to send as many as 1,000 active-duty Army troops to help
secure the southern border — as he works
to stop what he has called an “onslaught” of immigrants only days before the midterm elections.
As
part of that effort, the president has capitalized this month on the
thousands of Central American migrants trekking north through Mexico.
Many in the group are women and children believed to be seeking
refuge from violence and economic hardship. He said without evidence
this week that criminals and “unknown Middle Easterners” were
“mixed in” among the people in the migrant caravan, and
has blamed its formation on Democrats , falsely charging that they support allowing immigrants to stream, unchecked, into the country.
The
caravan is still more than 1,000 miles south of the border, and it is
unclear when or whether the migrants will arrive, or how many will
seek to cross into the United States.
The White House did not
respond to requests for comment on the plan for executive action on
the border, and referred questions about the troop deployment to
the Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security.
Details
of the plan were still being completed on Thursday, according to
the people who described it, all of whom insisted on anonymity to
discuss a proposal that is still under development. The president,
who is prone to changing his mind, could still decide not to take
action, they stressed.
But three people briefed on the plan said
it envisioned Mr. Trump issuing a proclamation on Tuesday. It would
invoke broad presidential powers to bar foreigners from entering the
country for national security reasons — under the same section of
immigration law that underpinned the
travel ban — to block Central American migrants from crossing the southern border, they said.
At
the same time, the administration would put in place new rules that
would disqualify migrants who cross the border in between ports of
entry from claiming asylum, according to those briefed. Exceptions
would be made for people facing torture at home.
Taken together, the actions would effectively prevent
hundred of people in the caravan from gaining entry into the United
States and making an asylum claim. But the longer-term implications
could be more profound, potentially shutting down altogether an
avenue — permitted under both United States and international law —
that many people fleeing violence and persecution use to take refuge
here.
According to American immigration law, people arriving at
ports of entry on the United States border have the right to seek
asylum, and, if they demonstrate a “credible fear” of returning
home, to have their claims processed with the possibility of
eventually being granted legal status to stay. Those who do not go
to a checkpoint but are apprehended crossing the border without
authorization can also make such a claim and must, under the law, be
afforded a chance to have their case heard.
Mr. Trump and his
advisers have complained bitterly about that system, arguing that it
can reward fabricated or unfounded claims of vulnerability.
He
has made no distinction between people flouting immigration laws and
those fleeing violence and persecution, portraying the entire caravan
group as lawbreakers. “To those in the Caravan, turnaround, we are
not letting people into the United States illegally,”
the president wrote Thursday on Twitter . “Go back to your Country and if you want, apply for citizenship like millions of others are doing!”
Mr.
Trump is weighing the new measures as he prepares to order 800 to 1,000
United States Army troops to help secure the southern border,
Defense Department officials said on Thursday.
Jim Mattis,
the defense secretary, was expected to sign papers in the coming
days to send the troops. They will include engineers to help with
the construction of tents and fencing, doctors for medical support, and
potentially some personnel to operate drones along the border, the
officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the
deployment had not yet been finished.
Mr. Trump has made it
clear in recent days that he is angry and frustrated about his
administration’s inability to gain firmer control of the United
States border with Mexico.
“I am bringing out the military for this National Emergency,” the
president tweeted . “They will be stopped!”
It
is not the first time that Mr. Trump has demanded that the military
secure the southern border. In April, when another such caravan of
migrants began making its way north through Mexico, he
called for
United States troops to step in, suggesting that he wanted active-duty
armed troops to do what immigration authorities could not. Instead,
after discussions with Mr. Mattis and others, Mr. Trump requested
that hundreds of National Guard personnel be mobilized to serve in
support roles.
This time, according to officials briefed on the
discussions, Mr. Trump’s aides had been looking at sending many more
troops — up to 10,000 — to aid in addressing the migrant flow, as
they scrambled to satisfy a president demanding a muscular response.
Mr. Mattis has been resistant to calls to involve the military in
such endeavors.
The active-duty military is generally barred by
law from carrying out domestic law enforcement functions, such as
apprehending people at the border. Officials said the deployment
that Mr. Mattis is expected to approve would be legal, however,
because the troops would be serving in a support role, rather than
performing policing or law enforcement duties themselves.
A
senior Defense Department official who has been briefed on the planning
said the precise legal authorities under which Mr. Mattis would
order the deployment were still being ironed out by administration
lawyers. Mr. Trump’s reference to the term “national emergency” is
significant, the official added, because that allows wider latitude
to send active-duty troops under existing legal authorities.
Human
rights and immigrant advocacy groups condemned the decision to use
the military, calling Mr. Trump’s response to the caravan a callous and
politically motivated attempt to instill fear in American voters by
fabricating a sense of crisis in the run-up to the midterm
elections.
“The approach of a caravan of migrants that includes
refugees fleeing persecution and violence is not a crisis, but
President Trump is yet again spreading hatred and fear, hoping to
score political points by making Americans fear refugees,” said Mike
Breen, the chief executive of Human Rights First, an advocacy
group. “The president should not be using the military to further a
partisan agenda.”
The military deployment is one element of a
multifaceted effort that senior administration officials have been
discussing privately for weeks to try to satisfy the president’s
demand to do more to secure the border. Kirstjen M. Nielsen, the
Homeland Security secretary, who has briefed Mr. Trump about the
caravan as well as data showing a large uptick in the number of
apprehensions at the border over the past year, has been leading the
effort.
On Friday, Ms. Nielsen is scheduled to travel to
California to visit a newly constructed border barrier that the
Department of Homeland Security describes as “President Trump’s
30-foot border wall.”
The barrier is actually a replacement
project first proposed by the Border Patrol in 2009 under the Obama
administration, which replaces older structures constructed in the
1990s. The $18 million project replaces two and a half miles of old
fencing."
by, Julie Hirschfeld Davis & Thomas Gibbons-Neff
~~~~
BTW, the New York Times is correct in stating that the replacement barrier (both in San Diego and Calexico) was appropriated under Obama - I point this out because a couple of weeks ago the San Diego Union Tribune incorrectly reported it was appropriated under Trump.
The point is, these new threats are outrageous and frightening. Unknown if this whackamole Trump will actually go through with these threats.
~~~~~
I'm putting this AP report up, because so far I have not seen reports from the Mexican News sources of Mexican Federal Police harassing the migrantes; AP points out an example of such harassment and the fact that the Mexican government is not helping the marching migrantes with any sort humanitarian aid. If you see a Mexican report which addresses these issues,please leave a link.
From MSN
AP
Sickness, Fear, Harassment In Mexico Whittle Away At Caravan
"MAPASTEPEC,
Mexico — Little by little, sickness, fear and police harassment are
whittling down the migrant caravan making its way to the U.S. border,
with many of the 4,000 to 5,000 migrants who resumed their journey
Thursday complaining of exhaustion.
The group, many with children and even pushing toddlers in strollers,
departed Mapastepec at dawn with more than 1,000 miles still to go
before they reach the U.S. border.
They had advanced about 95
miles (150 kilometers) as the crow flies since thousands burst across
Mexico's southernmost border six days earlier.
The
column stretched for more than a mile as the migrants left the town
square where many spent the night. The municipality of some 45,000
people, along with churches and volunteers, offered some medicine and
donated water, clothing baby formula and baby bottles.
As they
reached the highway, families with young children packed sidewalks
asking for donations and rides to the next stop, Pijijipiapan, about 25
miles (40 kilometers) further ahead.
Melkin Claros, 34, was
traveling with his 7-year old son and a teenage nephew and remained
steadfast in his goal. "Everyone's objective is to arrive (in the United
States)," he said, adding that he planned to request asylum because
gangs made it impossible to live in Honduras.
"It's true you risk your life a lot here, but we risk more in our country."
Still,
Mexican officials say nearly 1,700 have dropped out of the caravan to
apply for asylum in Mexico, and a few hundred have accepted government
offers to bus them back to their home countries.
Carlos Roberto
Hernandez, of Yoro province in Honduras, dropped out after developing a
rumbling cough during the scorching daytime heat and evening rains.
"We
got hit by rain, and ever since then I've had a cold," Hernandez said.
Asked Wednesday if he would make another attempt to reach the U.S., he
said emphatically: "No. I'm going to make my life in Honduras."
For Pedro Arturo Torres, it appeared to be homesickness that broke his determination to reach the U.S.
"We
didn't know what lay ahead," said Torres. "We want to return to our
country, where you can get by — even if just with beans, but you can
survive, there with our families, at peace."
The Mexican federal government's attitude has also played a role in wearing down the caravan.
All
the food, old clothes, water and medicine given to the migrants have
come from private citizens, church groups or sympathetic local
officials.
The federal government hasn't given the migrants on the
road a single meal, a bathroom or a bottle of water. It has reserved
those only for migrants who turn themselves in at immigration offices to
apply for visas or be deported.
Sometimes federal police have interfered with the caravan.
In
at least one instance, The Associated Press saw federal police officers
force a half-dozen passenger vans to pull over and make the drivers
kick migrants off, while leaving Mexican passengers aboard. In a climate
where heat makes walking nearly impossible at midday, such tactics may
eventually take a toll on migrants' health.
In Mapastepec, where
the main group stayed Wednesday night, it appeared the size of the
caravan had diminished slightly. The United Nations estimated earlier in
the week that about 7,000 people were in the group. The Mexican
government gave its own figure Wednesday of "approximately 3,630."
Parents
say they keep going for their children's futures, and fears of what
could happen to them back home in gang-dominated Honduras, which was the
main motivation for deciding to leave in the first place.
"They
can't be alone. ... There's always danger," said Ludin Giron, a Honduran
street vendor making the difficult journey with her three young
children. "When (gang members) see a pretty girl, they want her for
themselves. If they see a boy, they want to get him into drugs."
Refusing
either demand can be deadly. Honduras has a homicide rate of about 43
per 100,000 inhabitants, one of the highest in the world for any country
not in open war.
Espinosa, a tortilla maker from Cortes, Honduras,
said there was no work back home. "That's why we decided to come here,
to give a better future for our children," she said.
Such caravans
have taken place regularly, if on a smaller scale, over the years, but
U.S. President Donald Trump has seized on the phenomenon this year and
made it a rallying call for his Republican base ahead of the Nov. 6
midterm elections.
Trump has blamed Democrats for what he says are
weak immigration laws, and he claimed that MS-13 gang members and
unknown "Middle Easterners" were hiding among the migrants. He later
acknowledged there was "no proof" of the claim Middle Easterners were in
the crowd. But he tweeted Wednesday that the U.S. "will never accept
people coming into our Country illegally!"
Associated Press
journalists traveling with the caravan have met throngs of Hondurans, as
well as Guatemalans, Salvadorans and Nicaraguans, but no one from the
Mideast.
Another, smaller caravan earlier this year dwindled
greatly as it passed through Mexico, with only about 200 making it to
the California border. Those who do make it into the U.S. face a hard
time being allowed to stay. U.S. authorities do not consider poverty,
which many cite as a reason for migrating, in processing asylum
applications.
Carmen Mejia from Copan, Honduras, carried
3-year-old Britany Sofia Alvarado in her arms, and clutched the hand of
7-year-old Miralia Alejandra Alvarado, also sweaty — and feverish.
Mejia
said she was worn out. Still, she pledged to go on. "I've walked a long
way. I don't want to return. I want a better future for my children."
~~~~~
Aristegui Full Coverage.
~~
~~~
Caravana Migrante Updates 10/27/18:
We have been having connection problems here due to the heavy fog, electricity off & on so I'm late.
Here are just some Caravana Migrante Updates from yesterday & today:
10/26/18:
From La Jornada
Policia Federal Detiene a Migrantes de La Caravana
Por, Elio Henriquez
(BTW, I noticed NBC picked up this report today)
Pasted for you:
"Arriaga, Chis .
Federal police and agents of the National Institute of Migration (INM)
detained a group of undocumented Central Americans who were walking in a
caravan from the border city of Hidalgo to Tapachula, government
sources reported.
They said that the number of detained migrants could reach 300,
although other sources indicated that they were around 100, since many
of them managed to escape through the bush.
They added that the police operation was carried out at the height of
the municipality of Frontera Hidalgo, after the uniformed were placed on
the road to prevent the passage of the caravan.
They reported that the detained Central Americans were transferred to
the 21st century station of the INM, located in Tapachula."
 |
| courtesy Proceso |
Here is the report from Proceso:
Por, Isain Mandujano
Pasted For You:
"ARRIAGA, Chis.
(appro) .- Agents of the National Institute of Migration (INM), with
the support of the Federal Police (PF), deployed an operation to
intercept and detain a group of 300 Honduran migrants who left this
morning from the border municipality of Suchiate, and they hoped to join
the caravan of migrants that arrived in Arriaga today.
The 300 Honduran migrants left Suchiate this morning and waited to reach Tapachula on foot.
But, at the height of the town of Ignacio Zaragoza, between Suchiate
and Metapa, they found themselves facing a convoy of vehicles of the INM
and the Federal Police, who were carrying two buses, which they were
asked to board.
Given this, some of the migrants dispersed and began to run through the brush, but they were caught. The agents of the INM told them that they would not be hurt.
However, they were taken against their will to the Siglo XXI Migration
Station to register them and initiate their refugee application process
before the Mexican Commission for Assistance to Refugees (Comar).
After signing them, they were told they would be taken to the
"shelter", a detention center set up by the federal government at the
facilities of the Mesoamerican Fair, where up to now there are some
1,700 people, many of them against their will. They can not leave or have contact with their relatives abroad.
Meanwhile, the bulk of the Honduran exodus contingent arrived today to
Arriaga, supported by the mayor of Tonalá, Manuel Narcía Coutiño.
So that they did not stay in the central plaza of their town, the mayor
of Tonalá provided them with cargo trucks from the town hall and the
private initiative, to transfer them once and for all to the next town,
Arriaga, the last point in Chiapas territory, before to enter the
Oaxacan territory."
~~~~~
10/26/18:
Proceso published this piece by Arturo Rodriquez which highlights the anti-migrante attitude of the old guard. You might want to check out Arturo's other reports while you are there:
Notas Sin Pauta
Por, Arturo Rodriguez
Pasted For You :
Before migrants, the ruinous Mexico
Arturo Rodríguez García
In 2003, news was displayed in the police sections of local newspapers
in Coahuila: two Honduran migrants had been stoned in the vicinity of a
railway route and one of them, Ismael de Jesús Martínez Ortiz, was
killed in the attack.
The attack was perpetrated by agents of a private security company,
responsible for guarding the trains, which was preceded by numerous
complaints against their guards for assaults on migrants in transit who,
by naturally following their way, left unfinished processes and,
therefore, aggressors in impunity.
Until then, a particularly relevant piece of information had not been
disseminated: the security company was owned by Miguel Nazar Haro, the
bloodthirsty ex-head of the Federal Security Directorate.
For several weeks the survivor of the attack, Germán Turcio Bonilla,
convalesced in a hospital and then was lodged in a hotel that the police
instances of that entity used to destine to the custody of people in
arraigo.
The victim was thus subjected to a confinement close to the prison,
with the purpose of keeping him in the city and continuing the process
of homicide, until Bishop Raúl Vera and the priest, Pedro Pantoja,
managed to assume their maintenance and lodging.
That episode consolidated Saltillo's reputation for violence against
migrants and, however, in 2007, would extend to the entire migratory
route from the southern border to the northern border, with companies no
longer as perpetrators. of security but of an entelechy: the organized
crime that, it was said, submitted to all institutions, including the
National Institute of Migration.
Once again, as happens with social leaders, journalists, opponents or
anyone who is uncomfortable for political or economic interests, and is
victimized, the State has the perfect excuse to disappear and kill
migrants, because it will not be responsible for anything other than
Sometimes, and only under internal and external pressure, some miserable
people, identified as assassins at the moment of being presented,
people without many possibilities of defense.
Difficult, however, was to articulate regarding assaults, murders and
crimes, which was the business that is the first and last objective of a
criminal group.
Perhaps for this reason, the next step was to stigmatize "the crime" to
the migrants, with leaks about alleged illicit operations -which the
pretext of the narco gives everything-, overexpose those crimes in which
a walker had allegedly incurred, magnify a theft of starving and
establishing a xenophobic opinion on a small scale, in cities and border
crossings, where migrants roam with hunger.
If a stamp is memorable to me of the borders that I have known, it is,
for the dramatic, the one of Tecún Umán-Frontera Hidalgo, with its going
and coming of merchandise in rafts of parquet and old rim;
with pickets of soldiers that testify the free movement of people and
the most painful version of free trade, through the Suchiate, spatial
space of the exchange of miseries.
Three decades after having crossed it, I am surprised today in the
chronicles, reading that the conditions of that border are the same and
that only before the migrant caravan they changed momentarily, while the
security bodies of the State exposed victims; another change is because the incursion of mass poverty exalted the long work of xenophobic inculturation;
and finally, one more change is because the visibility of the caravan
occurs at a key electoral moment for the American Donald Trump.
From that 2003 until now, a conclusion: with a private, anonymous or
governmental mark, without a known beneficiary, in Mexico, by system, it
continues to be literally and symbolically stoned, to Ismael and
Germán, while a certain sector of Mexican society feasts with rudeness ."
~~~~~
10/27/18:
Meanwhile, Pena Nieto opened his arms to the migrantes, offering them food, security, medical assistance and jobs. It was without doubt a "Mi Casa Es Tu Casa" moment. The catch was that they turn themselves in. The migrantes rejected the offer and doubled down - but not before being harassed again, this time by the Gendarmeria in Oaxaca.
From Frontera:
Migrantes En Contra De Plan De Pena
Por, Eduardo Lopez
Pasted For You :
"MEXICO CITY
The migrant caravan rejected the "You are your house" plan, proposed by
President Enrique Peña Nieto, which would give them employment, health,
education and regularization possibilities in the country.
In an assembly, the Central Americans did not accept the conditions of
staying in Chiapas or Oaxaca to access the program and they agreed to
continue on their way to the United States.
Today at dawn the contingent of about 6 thousand people will depart to the Municipality of Tapanatepec, Oaxaca.
"Continue this journey, follow this way of life, we leave tomorrow at
three in the morning," said Irineo Mujica, coordinator of Pueblos Sin
Fronteras, during the assembly.
They considered that the government measure only seeks to contain them
in the South of the Republic where they assure that there are few job
opportunities even for the Chiapanecans and Oaxacans.
In addition, the refuge application system is collapsed, according to activists, last year 80% of the procedures were rejected.
They also asked the United Nations to protect the caravan, as they
assured that there is harassment of the immigration authorities through
arrests of members.
MIGRANTS DO NOT TRUST GOVERNMENT
ARRIAGA, CHIAPAS. - The program "You are in your house" will not be
successful among the Central American migrants who travel in caravan to
the United States because it only applies in Chiapas and Oaxaca, and
they do not want to stay in these entities, said David López, a member
of the organization People without Borders.
"Migrants do not trust the government, we already have the experiences
of past caravans, they always make us the same promises so that these
people stay and deport them, and as promised, nothing comes," he said.
Some 6,000 undocumented Central Americans are in Chiapas, waiting to
move to northern Mexico and reach the border with the United States.
Lopez added that the offer of this program is not viable and
contradicts the intention of the migrants, besides that most want to go
to the neighboring country of the North because they have relatives
waiting for them and helping them to arrive."
~~~~~
Most everyone down here has published this report, here it is from Proceso - the Gendarmeria blocks access to the Caravana Migrante for three hours, but then pulls back letting them pass:
From Proceso
Por, Pedro Matias
Pasted For You:
" OAXACA,
Oax. (Proceso.com.mx) .- Around 100 elements of the Police Gendarmerie
prevented, for three hours, the passage of the caravan of Central
American migrants to the territory of Oaxaca, a situation that was on
the verge of overflowing spirits.
~~~~~~
Okay that's it for today, keep an eye on the National News:
~~~~~
Locally, the executions are adding up throughout Baja California, I'll try to get back here with those stats but we have a next door neighbor who might need to go to the hospital so it depends on that.
A heads up however: This morning a private armed guard was stationed in front of the larger Calimax in Rosarito Beach - this was not the guards who change the ATM machines, this was a private armed guard standing right in front of the entrance door. In 2009 during the CAF-Sinaloa conflict, Rafael Fimbres Hernandez was shot and killed in Tijuana (unknown if this was a robbery or kidnapping attempt), then in 2010 Jose Fernando Labastida shot and killed in the Chapultepec neighborhood of Tijuana. Both men were relatives of the Fimbres family who started the Calimax Grocery Chain back in 1949.
