RUTHFULLY YOURS

These columns favor generous immigration and asylum for refugees. But when migration becomes a political weapon to foment border chaos, leaders have no choice other than to step in and protect national security. Exhibit A are the 4,000 or so Central Americans moving on foot through Mexico to the U.S.

Waves of humanity marching in lock step don’t materialize spontaneously and neither has this “caravan.” This march is organized and not necessarily for the benefit of the migrants. Mr. Trump has good reason to turn it back.

Not since the 1980 Mariel boatlift from Cuba has there been a similar attempt to overwhelm U.S. immigration law on the pretext of celebrating American freedom. Thousands of Cubans made their way to Florida when Fidel Castro temporarily lifted his Havana Curtain, and American boats of every shape and size sailed into the Caribbean to collect them.

But the sheer magnitude made it impossible to process the newcomers in an orderly fashion. Castro saw to it that criminals and the mentally ill also climbed aboard the boats. No one doubted the Cuban hunger to escape, but the unintended consequences of the mayhem were costly.

A Mariel replay now seems to be coming from Honduras. Though the details are murky, we do know that former Honduran congressman Bartolo Fuentes of the left-wing Libre Party has admitted to organizing this caravan.

Libre is the party of former president Manuel Zelaya, an ally of Venezuela and Cuba who in 2009 tried to override the Honduran constitution to remain in office despite a term limit. The Honduran congress, his own party, the Supreme Court, the national ombudsman and the Catholic Church opposed his power grab. He was removed by the military and never returned to power despite the efforts of the Obama Administration.

But Mr. Zelaya remains active in politics. While center-right President Juan Orlando Hernández has encouraged Hondurans on the journey to return home and even has offered them assistance, Mr. Zelaya is egging them on.

In a press release last week, he accused Mr. Hernández of a “submissive and lackey attitude” toward “the arrogant position of the empire” and criticized Mr. Hernández’s efforts to “deepen failed economic policies” like privatization. The opposition is now calling for street protests with a threat that if Mr. Hernández does not step down, the migration wave will continue.

Mr. Fuentes, who was detained in Guatemala last week and returned to Honduras, has said he did not expect the caravan to grow so large, which raises the question of where the financing for the marchers is coming from. Criminal organizations and governments like Venezuela would benefit from chaos at the U.S. border that embarrasses the Trump Administration before the election. Many nongovernmental organizations on the left also support the migrants’ “right” to the American dream.

The reality is that bowing to this migration blackmail would produce an American political backlash that would damage the cause of legal immigration and a humane refugee policy. Think of Germany’s Angela Merkel and the 2015 flood of Middle Eastern migrants. Mr. Trump is right to seek Mexican cooperation to make clear to the migrants that, whatever their plight, they cannot stampede over America’s southern border.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271700/migrant-caravan-invasion-joseph-klein

A migrant caravan from Central America is currently heading en masse to the United States. Its members, several thousand strong, are intent on pouring into the U.S. in what amounts to an invasion force. President Trump has correctly branded the caravan an “onslaught” and an “assault on our country.” The president has promised to use military troops if necessary to close the southern border with Mexico. He also threatened to cut off all foreign aid to those Central American countries that are not doing enough to stop the migration caravan in its tracks.

Members of the caravan have already demonstrated their violent streak during an early stage of their trek, as they approached Mexico. They “forced their way through Guatemala’s northwestern border and flooded onto a bridge leading to Mexico,” AFP reported. These migrants, mainly from Honduras, engaged in violent clashes with Mexican riot police as they tried to surge through police lines and cross the bridge into Mexico. Four Mexican police officers were reportedly injured. “Violent entry into the country not only threatens our sovereignty, but also puts the migrants themselves at risk,” Mexico’s President Pena Nieto said. “Mexico does not permit and will not permit entry into its territory in an irregular fashion, much less in a violent fashion.”

Mexican government officials have said that Mexico would be willing to consider asylum requests from members of the caravan on an individual basis, with the assistance of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Refugees (“UNHCR”). Mexico is proposing that UNCHR establish shelters along Mexico’s southern border with Central American countries. Individuals deemed by the UN agency to be eligible for asylum protection, presumably after performing its standard vetting, would be eligible for placement in a host country willing to accept them, which could be Mexico or the United States. Those deemed not to have a legitimate claim would be sent back to their home countries. If someone manages to slip through this system and travels through Mexico before crossing the Mexico-U.S. border into the United States, Mexico has indicated that it would be willing to accept the return of that individual if the U.S. so wishes. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the United States welcomed and would cooperate with Mexico’s initiative to have Central American migrants processed for possible asylum in Mexico first with UN assistance. The initiative conforms with international law on the handling of claims for refugee status and is an orderly and humane solution to the migration crisis that the caravan has precipitated.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/mike-pompeo-america-approaching-immigration-crisis/

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday that the U.S. is quickly approaching a “moment of crisis” when it comes to immigration.

Speaking at a press conference in Mexico City alongside his counterpart, Mexican foreign secretary Luis Videgaray Caso, Pompeo stressed the need to address the influx of immigrants to both countries.

“We are quickly reaching a point which appears to be a moment of crisis,” he said.

A caravan of about 4,000 Honduran immigrants, including children and fragments of families, reached the southern Mexican border on Friday, prompting the Mexican government to request humanitarian aid from the United Nations to help address the asylum seekers.

“We are deeply aware that the way that Mexico will handle this is your sovereign decision,” the secretary of state said. “Mexico will make its decision — its leaders and its people will decide the best way to achieve what I believe are shared objectives” such as “stopping this flow before it reaches the U.S. border.”

“It’s a challenge that Mexico is facing, and that’s how I expressed it to Secretary Pompeo,” Videgaray said.

Pompeo also stressed the importance of reforming American immigration law, saying that, “If we get it right, we will improve the relationship between our two countries materially.”

President Trump has threatened to cut aid to Central American countries and send the U.S. military to America’s southern border to stop the group of migrants if Mexico would not step in, but no troops have yet been deployed.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/10/immigration-e-verify-republicans-should-embrace/

As we wrote early this summer, an electronic system called E-Verify is the key to solving the illegal-immigration problem. By participating in this voluntary program, employers can ensure that their workers are in the country legally; were its use made mandatory, the attraction of illegal immigration would decline precipitously. Because so many illegal immigrants come by overstaying visas rather than by sneaking across the border, its potential effect is far greater than that of even a border wall.

The 115th Congress has failed to pass legislation to this effect, but with an immigration restrictionist in the White House for at least two more years, there is still hope for the 116th — if it has a clear mandate to do so. This is why it’s crucial for Republican Senate candidates to strongly endorse E-Verify. Many candidates have done so. But others have been quieter on the issue, and they need to speak up.

Among the Republicans with a decent chance to win next month, there are many who have aggressively promoted E-Verify in the past — sometimes when it really mattered. Arizona’s Martha McSally, Tennessee’s Marsha Blackburn, and North Dakota’s Kevin Cramer all cosponsored a bill in the House, the Securing America’s Future Act, that among much else would have mandated the program. Current Republican senators up for reelection Deb Fischer (Nebraska) and Roger Wicker (Mississippi) cosponsored a recent bill to mandate E-Verify as well.

Florida governor Rick Scott has required state agencies and contractors to use the program; Indiana businessman Mike Braun uses it at his own company. Mitt Romney, running to take Orrin Hatch’s Senate seat in Utah, supported the program during his presidential run and continues to endorse a “simplified legal status verification system” in which employers who hired illegal workers would be sanctioned. In Ohio, Jim Renacci’s website endorses “instituting a nationwide E-Verify system.” Texas senator Ted Cruz, too, has argued in the course of his reelection campaign that E-Verify is an essential component of immigration reform.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/10/hondurass_paid_caravan_refugees_are_exposed_as_frauds_by_venezuelas_real_refugees.html

To hear the left and its complicit press tell it, the great 4,000-strong caravan of Hondurans snaking through through Guatemala and Mexico on their way to the U.S. to claim asylum, are just desperate refugees, traveling in a group to ensure their safety. That was how the New York Times wrote it up.

Well, no.

Turns out they’re being paid, in money, standing in line for their paychecks. A video posted by Rep. Matt Gaetz and highlighted on DC Whispers shows the process:

Compared to Honduran wages, where the per capita income is around $2,200, it’s undoubtedly nice work if you can get it.

And it highlights that the caravan march is just a job like any other, Honduras’ lower middle class being hired for a publicity stunt by some moneybags with an interest in eroding rule of law at the U.S. border. Gaetz openly wondered if it was George Soros, who’s sponsored such things in the past. It explains the newish-looking clothes being worn by these so-called refugees. And it explain the festive look of the thing, what with the Honduran banners and battle flags flying. With a good paycheck and word getting around, you can see why the caravan has snowballed from first a thousand in the earliest reports, to 3,000, to now 4,000 at last count. It could easily go to numbers much higher what with all the paychecks going around for a hard day’s acting role, playing the role of desperate refugee and then illegal alien, just in time for U.S. midterms.

There’s just one bad fly in the ointment.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/migrant-caravan-makes-way-through-guatemala-despite-trump-threats/

A caravan of close to 2,000 Honduran immigrants is continuing to make its way through Guatemala to the United States, a day after President Trump warned Central American countries that they may lose American aid if they let illegal immigrants cross the U.S. border.
Donald J. Trump
✔ @realDonaldTrump

“We have today informed the countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador that if they allow their citizens, or others, to journey through their borders and up to the United States, with the intention of entering our country illegally, all payments made to them will STOP (END)!”

The president also hit Democrats Wednesday morning, calling their inaction on immigration reform a “great midterm issue” for the GOP.

The migrant caravan started with a mere 160 or so travelers, but picked up people along the way and has grown to as many as 3000. The caravan’s members, which include small children and adults who have left family behind, say they are fleeing violence in Honduras, one of the most crime-ridden countries in the world. They sleep on the ground and eat whatever food townspeople can buy them.

The new caravan is larger than one that made headlines in April as asylum seekers traveled north, hoping to either settle in Mexico or make it across the U.S. border. About 1,200 people traveled in that caravan, an annual and largely ceremonial Holy Week event that attracted a particularly large group this year. In the end, only about 150 actually attempted to cross the U.S. border.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13024/sanctuary-cities

Kathryn Steinle’s last words were, “Dad, help me, help me.” But her dad could not help her. It was up to us to help her by keeping the streets as safe as possible. We did not. We used up all our sympathy on those who do not deserve it, leaving none for those who do deserve it. We made a “sanctuary city” that was safe for José Inés García Zárate, but extremely unsafe for his victim, Kathryn Steinle.

There are many reasons that citizens vote for a candidate. Blue-collar families often vote for the one who will bring back manufacturing jobs. Military families often vote for the one who will leave no man behind. For me, public safety is a primary consideration. People have a finite amount of sympathy. I’m sure Mother Teresa had more than I do, but even hers was not unlimited. Wisely, she spent hers for the poor. But many people are not wise. They spend their sympathy on illegal immigrants and criminals, leaving none for law-abiding citizens. Take, for instance, the cases of Sarah McKinley and Kathryn Steinle.

Sarah McKinley was home with her three-month-old son on New Year’s Eve 2013. She lived in the rural community of Blanchard, Oklahoma, and police response times tended to be long. She was an 18-year-old widow. Her husband had died of cancer a few days earlier.

When she saw two men attempting to break in, McKinley recognized one as a man who had been stalking her since her husband’s funeral. Apparently he was looking for drugs in the cancer victim’s home. She gave her baby a bottle, then retrieved a shotgun and a handgun and barricaded the door. She phoned 911 and asked what to do. She was told she could not shoot unless they came through the door. The 911 dispatcher, though, who was a woman, added, “You do what you have to do to protect your baby.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2018/10/15/immigration-america-melting-pot-or-civil-war/

The choice will depend on our immigration policies

On December 11, 2017, Akayed Ullah, a 27-year-old man born in Bangladesh, detonated a crudely designed explosive device in New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal, which sees more than 230,000 commuters every day. Thankfully, Ullah injured no one but himself. His intention, however, had evidently been to take as many of those commuters with him to the afterlife as he could. In the days and weeks that followed, dogged reporters, in the United States and in Ullah’s native Bangladesh, pieced together a troubling story: Though not notably radical before settling in Brooklyn in 2011, the young man had come to loathe the U.S., the country that had welcomed him, and to see his true home as being with the Islamic State, a gang of zealots best known for its homicidal brutality. Ullah apparently concluded that innocent U.S. commuters, including any number of recent immigrants much like him, deserved to be put to death to avenge America’s war against the Islamic State.

News of the botched attack sent my mind reeling. For one, Ullah lived in Kensington, the neighborhood where I grew up, and he was born in the same country as my parents. Ullah and I had shared the same stretches of sidewalk, and probably frequented the same corner stores. He settled in the country legally via a green card sponsored by a family member, not an uncommon story among Bangladeshi immigrants. When I saw Ullah’s face, I saw someone who could have been a cousin, or who might have helped my mother carry an armful of groceries.

After I heard the news, I girded myself for what would come next. In the age of Trump, all conversations about immigration descend into dueling spasms of culture-war outrage. As a poor Muslim immigrant turned lone-wolf terrorist, Ullah was emblematic of some of the most polarizing aspects of the president’s immigration agenda. Trump had famously campaigned on banning Muslim immigration to the United States outright, a stance that enjoyed overwhelming support among GOP primary voters. As president, he had called for curbing family-based admissions on the grounds that they meant admitting millions of immigrants lacking in “merit.” Immi­gration advocates pushed back. Some argued that it was obscene to suggest that a man such as Ullah was representative of immigrants at large. Others said that it was racist to question our current approach to family-based admissions.