This is an update of the story I posted here in September about Africans piling up in southern Mexico and insisting that the Mexican government allow them to move north to the US border.
Looks like so far Mexico is holding firm in its promise to the Trump Administration to get these caravans stopped—-in this case with the Mexican National Guard.
(Note that the LA Times isn’t loose with the language and isn’t calling the migrants ‘refugees.’)
Mexican authorities stop caravan of migrants attempting to head north
To get the best media photo, well-trained migrants putting babies on the front lines to confront National Guard..
MEXICO CITY — Mexican authorities on Saturday thwarted the latest caravan of migrants attempting to head north from southern Mexico with the hope of reaching the United States.
Some 2,000 migrants from various nations — including Central American and African countries, Haiti and Cuba — set off on foot in the predawn hours from the southern Mexican city of Tapachula.
It was the first such caravan since early 2019, as Mexico — under pressure from the Trump administration to curb U.S.-bound migration thorough its territory — has cracked down on Central Americans and others seeking to reach the United States.
On Saturday, the northbound caravan met a phalanx of Mexican authorities, including National Guard and federal police units along the highway at a point about 25 miles north of Tapachula. The enforcement presence prompted almost half the caravan members — including many women and children — to surrender to Mexican immigration authorities.
[….]
Thousands of migrants seeking to reach U.S. territory — more than 1,000 miles to the north — have been stuck in Tapachula for months as Mexican officials have been hesitant to hand out visas allowing them to continue north. Most entered Mexico from Guatemala. The migrants stranded in Tapachula are mostly Central Americans but include others from the Caribbean, South America, Africa and Asia.
Easily the first question anyone asks who is hearing for the first time that we have admitted to the US, at great taxpayer expense, hundreds of thousands of refugees over the last four decades is this:
Why aren’t we taking care of our own vulnerable people first?
The other day when I saidthat we need a grassroots group called ‘Migration Moratorium Now!’I figure the subtitle would be something like this: ‘Take Care of Americans First!’
And, that is the gist of this letter, thanks to reader Joanne for sharing it, atSyracuse.com:
Syracuse is falling apart, and Mayor Walsh’s priority is refugees?
The writer, Paul Strail, is responding to a lengthy opinion piece written by the latest liberal mayor of Syracuse, Ben Walsh, with the help of Michael Melara executive director of Catholic Charities of Onondaga County.
Here is just a bit of Mr. Strail’s response to the mayor:
Mayor Ben Walsh establishing his bonafides as an Anti-Trump liberal.
The Post-Standard recently reported that Syracuse is still one of the poorest cities in the country. Nevertheless, Mayor Ben Walsh wrote in your paper that President Donald Trump was wrong to limit the number of refugees that the United States could allow (“Dear President Trump, Syracuse wants refugees,” Sept. 26, 2019).
This seems like a strange priority for Walsh to stake out, especially because his city is falling apart . At times, there seem to be homeless men and women panhandling on every street corner. Many of these folks are veterans.
[….]
The murder rate in Syracuse is too high. Academic achievement in the city schools is too low. So, when the mayor should be focused on meeting the many vital needs of his own city, he has to let everyone know that his real concern lies in preventing Trump from restricting the flow of foreign refugees into his city. How that misguided priority will help improve the crime rate, boost academic achievement in the schools, elevate the standard of living of the city’s poor and homeless, and give struggling homeowners some kind of tax relief, is anyone’s guess.
The truth is that Syracuse’s reputation as a sanctuary city must be maintained if Walsh hopes to win the support (and donations) of enough liberal Democrats in the next election. Loudly criticizing the president is the best way to do that. The suggestion that the president must hate refugees because he is an extraordinary bigot is the means by which Walsh is feeding red meat to Syracuse’s Trump-haters.
One of the first things I would ask the mayor is this: Since Syracuse has ‘welcomed’ 10,000 refugeesto the city over a recent ten year period, where is the proof that they have revitalized the city?
Indeed are they still there, or like the Bosnianswho supposedly helped boost the economy of St. Louis have they moved out of a city run by progressive politicians?
Amazing how either people don’t read, or have very short memories.
In 2015 we reportedon a story from the Atlanticabout how Syracuse is falling into perpetual poverty as its poorer sections become poorer with the importation of already impoverished refugees!
I call this illogical argument—that refugees bring economic boom times to struggling cities—the big lie!
German Interior Minister Warns of Migrant Wave Bigger Than 2015
German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer warned that the country could soon be overwhelmed by a refugee wave more significant than the one in 2015.
“We need to do more to help our European partners with controls at the EU’s external borders. We’ve left them alone for too long,” Seehofer said during a visit to Turkey. “If we don’t do this, we’ll experience a wave of refugees like in 2015 – or perhaps an even larger one.”
[….]
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly threatened to “open the gates” for illegal immigrants if the European Union fails to meet his ever-increasing demands. Ankara could again use the threat to silence Europe if it wages war against the Kurds in neighboring Syria.
[….]
While Greece makes desperate calls for strengthening the border and coastal security, NGOs backed by Germany, and the EU continue to pick up migrants along the North African coasts and disembarking them in Greek, Spanish, and Italian ports. [I assume you know that Salvini, who had protected Italy for months, is out.—ed]
If financially bankrupt Greece is unable to secure its coastline, Berlin isn’t in any better shape either. Nearly a million migrants — mainly from Arab and Muslim countries — swarmed the country after Chancellor Merkel opened Germany’s borders in September 2015. The surge led to a series of deadly Islamic terror attacks and a rise in violent migrant crime.
Four years on, the Merkel-led Germany is unprepared to face a migrant wave of the magnitude witnessed last time. There were not enough trained police officers to man Germany’s border, the head of Germany’s police union admitted.
“We don’t even have winter boots,” chairman of the German Police Federation (GdP) Jörg Radek told Der Tagesspiegel newspaper.
What! How can this be? Too many refugees are arriving in one location in a year that we are told has one of the lowest arrival rates of all time.
Iraqi terrorists arrested in Bowling Green in 2011. As a result of this pair getting through our supposedly robust security screening, the entire cohort of Iraqis arriving in the US had to be rescreened that year.
Bowling Green, by the way, is the location where those Iraqi refugee terrorists were found about eight years ago and it is Senator Rand Paul’s hometown.
It has been a controversial resettlement location for years, see my archive here.
There is one important bit of information you need to pay attention to as you read about how the schools can’t cope. Hint! It involves a key component of Trump’s recent Executive Orderthat seeks to allow some cities and states to turn away refugees.
The Bowling Green International Center is working with a special stakeholder group that will address local school superintendents’ concerns that their schools have been “overwhelmed” by the number of refugee arrivals in recent years.
“We’re barely getting by,” Warren County Public Schools Superintendent Rob Clayton said.
Clayton was joined Thursday by Bowling Green Independent School District Superintendent Gary Fields at the International Center’s fourth quarterly meeting with local resettlement stakeholders. [Just a reminder that you—members of the public—should be admitted to these meetings, but I know the contractors do everything in their power to keep the public out.—ed]
Together, the two superintendents emphasized a need for what they described as a more sustainable approach to refugee resettlement.
“We’re at capacity,” Fields said, describing the dearth of resources available to current English learner students in his school district.
By the end of the school year, Fields said, his district anticipates reaching the 20 percent mark for students classified as English learners. In Warren County Public Schools, one in five students fall into that category.
“As of September, we will have 190 Swahili speakers in our school district,” he said. “We have one translator.”
[….]
In some cases, due to the nature of their persecution and displacement from their homeland, refugees have interrupted educational experiences.
Bearing the responsibility for educating those students is sometimes a Herculean effort, Clayton said, citing an example of a 19-year-old student with no formal education.
[….]
Overall, the center received 513 refugees as of Sept. 20. That’s up from 297 refugees resettled in Bowling Green during the previous fiscal year.
Here it is, the major point I want you to see. Refugees are placed with family members who came before them so that once you have a contingent of certain ethnic groups in your ‘welcoming’ town or city more of that ethnic group will follow.
Also, note that there is no way to control “secondary migration” as refugees are permitted to move and often do for jobs or to be with their own kind of people.
Despite the uncertainty around what number the Trump administration would set, the Bowling Green International Center has seen a steady stream of arrivals.
This is mainly due to the role a refugee’s U.S. ties play in the resettlement process.
Refugees can ask to be resettled with family members already established in the country.The International Center also sees a significant number of “secondary migrants,” who initially resettle in other parts of the country and then travel to Bowling Green, often seeking work.
So, although you may hear the contractors squawking about Trump’s plan to let communities (or states) decide if they want more refugees, once a seed community is established there is usually no going back and the resettlement contractors know it.
Unlike their Central American counterparts, these Africans are very well organized!
See what Judicial Watchis reporting (hat tip: Joanne).
As you read this remember that LEGITIMATE asylum seekers are required to file for asylum (for refugee status) in the first safe country they get to (after supposedly escaping their home country where they supposedly were persecuted).
What these migrants and so many other wannabe ‘refugees’ around the world are doing is called Asylum Shopping!
They want to be in the country of their choice! They want to be your new neighbors in the United States!
ASSEMBLY OF AFRICAN MIGRANTS IN TAPACHULA DEMANDS ASYLUM IN U.S.
Among the multitude of migrants waiting in Mexico to get asylum in the United States are thousands of Africans boldly demanding passage into the country. They are far more coordinated than their Central American caravan counterparts and have formed an official organization to spread their message and advocate on their behalf. The group accuses Mexican authorities of discrimination and racism and is ordering Mexico to grant visas that allow them to continue their trek north to seek “protection” in America.
For about three months the Africans have been holed up in Tapachula, in the southeast Mexican state of Chiapas bordering Guatemala.They traveled for two months and crossed eight countries to reach Mexico, they assert in a mission statement that outlines their suffering as well as their demands. “We have climbed mountains and valleys,” the document reads. “We have crossed rivers with strong current. We have slept in the middle of the mud. We have gone hungry and drank rainwater to survive. We have seen bodies of migrant brothers on the road, dead of exhaustion, or drowned in the rivers. The jungle is populated by wild animals, snakes and poisonous insects. In that territory there are also criminals who assault people, who rape girls and women, killing those who try to resist. Many of us have lost all our belongings, including our official documents. We have gone through extremely dangerous cities and towns. We had to hide. We have suffered extortion and threats by authorities in Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico.”
They describe themselves as the Assembly of African Migrants in Tapachula, a group of 3,000 men, women (many pregnant), boys and girls from various African nations, including Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea Conakry, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Congo, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.They claim they left Africa because they suffered “political persecution” due to their religious beliefs and “sociocultural identities.” They also write in the statement that their homeland is “impoverished and subdued from the Western powers” though they aspire to obtain asylum in a nation considered to be a Western power.
