dagblog - Comments for "More Migrants Are Crossing the Border This Year. What’s Changed?"

Trump, like all demagogues,

NCD — Sat, 30 Mar 2019 23:03:18 +0000

In reply to Republicans have no intention

Trump, like all demagogues, wants to make it worse. Reichstag fire? Chaos leads to destruction of norms and institutions, and divides the population. Allows targeting of the opposition as unpatriotic.

Scaravans? Invaders? Blood in the streets? ...his hopes so....then he can demand emergency measures, emergency powers, crush the opposition, deny civil rights, to the cheers of his mob, increase social cohesion in his Base by stoking hate and fear ....

Republicans have no intention

artappraiser — Sat, 30 Mar 2019 22:36:02 +0000

In reply to More Migrants Are Crossing the Border This Year. What’s Changed?

Trump wants to cut off aid:

Which will make it more or less likely to generate large refugee flows?

It's like the President isn't very bright. https://t.co/IeUkrxEA59
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) March 30, 2019

Guatemala has brought down a

artappraiser — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 23:46:46 +0000

In reply to US Congressional Democrats

Guatemala has brought down a criminal group made up of police officers working as drug dealers and hitmen, showing how the country has not been spared from the region's growing crisis of police criminality.https://t.co/sjCTtr6Asp
— InSight Crime (@InSightCrime) March 29, 2019

I'd be willing to bet that

ocean-kat — Sat, 16 Mar 2019 05:22:57 +0000

In reply to ‘The Conveyor Belt’: U.S.

I'd be willing to bet that the reason this is happening is because the Mexican police are turning a blind eye to the traffic. Upon orders from higher level government officials. Because Trump's bellicosity has so degraded the relationship that Mexico won't cooperate.

Video from U.S. Customs and

artappraiser — Sat, 16 Mar 2019 05:13:42 +0000

In reply to ‘The Conveyor Belt’: U.S.

Video from U.S. Customs and Border Protection thermal imaging cameras shows buses delivering migrants to the border on Feb. 11 near Ajo, Ariz. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) which WaPo has published with the article:

They also have more with this slideshow/video/graphic to add to the story: A Conveyer Belt to the U.S. Border by Nick Miroff

‘The Conveyor Belt’: U.S.

artappraiser — Sat, 16 Mar 2019 05:08:54 +0000

In reply to More Migrants Are Crossing the Border This Year. What’s Changed?

‘The Conveyor Belt’: U.S. officials say massive smuggling effort is speeding (Guatemalan) immigrants to — and across — the southern border

By Nick Miroff @ WashingtonPost.com, March 15

Criminal organizations in Mexico have mounted a lucrative new smuggling operation that uses express buses to deliver Guatemalan migrant families to the U.S. border in a matter of days, making the journey faster, easier and safer, according to U.S. law enforcement reports and U.S. and Guatemalan officials.

The smugglers entice families with promises their journey will be free of the perils usually associated with travel to the U.S. border, along with assurances that by turning themselves in to U.S. authorities they will be released into the country within days.

Paying up to $7,000 per adult with child, families are transported to staging areas at ranches and hotels in southern Mexico, where they are organized into bus groups and rushed north along Mexican highways, “stopping only for food, fuel and bathroom breaks,” according to the U.S. law enforcement documents.

The model particularly appeals to families by minimizing some of the more intimidating and unsavory aspects of traditional Mexican smuggling operations, known for cramming migrants into squalid stash houses, where Central Americans are regularly abused and extorted for additional payments. The busing system has skirted those dangers, generating few reports of violence or mistreatment, U.S. officials say.

Within 72 hours of leaving the staging areas, the buses arrive at predetermined drop-off points within walking distance of the U.S. border. Migrant families are clustered into groups that have at times exceeded 300 adults and children, and they walk directly across the border, in some cases stepping over barriers in long, orderly lines. They then surrender to U.S. Border Patrol agents and initiate asylum claims [.....]

US Congressional Democrats

artappraiser — Sat, 09 Mar 2019 10:08:20 +0000

In reply to More Migrants Are Crossing the Border This Year. What’s Changed?

US Congressional Democrats have presented a bill to sanction those involved in corruption, money laundering, and drug trafficking in Guatemala.

President Jimmy Morales ousted a UN-backed anti-corruption commission last January: https://t.co/6xq4wNL3OC pic.twitter.com/JVHh2DEURs
— InSight Crime (@InSightCrime) March 8, 2019

If you want to dive a bit

artappraiser — Wed, 06 Mar 2019 21:35:02 +0000

In reply to More Migrants Are Crossing the Border This Year. What’s Changed?

If you want to dive a bit deeper, I found this piece from October to be excellent reporting on the situation:

U.S. Campaign Against Migration Goes Unheard, or Unheeded, in Guatemala

By Ron Nixon and Photographs By Kirsten Luce from CONCEPCIÓN CHIQUIRICHAPA, Guatemala @ NYTimes.com, Oct. 7, 2018

More migrants from Guatemala than from anywhere else are trying to cross the border into the United States, despite warnings about the perils of the journey north.

Both governments are making some efforts to discourage the migration but they can't seem to break the allure of sleazy traffickers touting their services. Partly because the area that is producing the most egress is largely Mayan-speaking indigenous population. They are a sub-culture where a lot of the kids don't know Spanish well enough that they have to be furnished with bi-lingual education! This is a rural culture buying into a narrative that the streets of the U.S. are paved with gold and there is difficulty because of language and education at countering that.