Thousands of Hondurans are headed for America. NBC News is reporting a caravan of more than 4000 migrants has left Honduras, is passing through Guatemala and will soon enter Mexico.
EXCLUSIVE w/ @Abs_NBC Honduran caravan now at 4000, Mexico sends more police to Guatemala-Mexico border. Pompeo set to visit Friday to press Mexico to stop caravan. Meanwhile, Sept crossings on US border soared. https://t.co/sYXoQTvfqP
— Julia E. Ainsley (@JuliaEAinsley) October 17, 2018
Donald Trump has threatened to cut off financial aid to any country that allows the migrants passage. And, he’s made it not about human suffering or the plight of the people but politics, imploring Republicans to use the issue in the midterm elections.
Hard to believe that with thousands of people from South of the Border, walking unimpeded toward our country in the form of large Caravans, that the Democrats won’t approve legislation that will allow laws for the protection of our country. Great Midterm issue for Republicans!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 17, 2018
Trump is dispatching Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Mexico City where he will meet with President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador “on economic issues, shared security challenges, and reducing illegal immigration.” In other words, he wants Mexico’s help in putting a stop to the caravan. NBC reports:
A caravan of migrants fleeing Honduras has grown to 4,000 and the Mexican government has sent an additional 500 federal police to its border with Guatemala in anticipation of their arrival, according to U.S. government documents obtained by NBC News.
Part of the caravan, which has split into two groups, is now approaching the Mexico-Guatemala border amidst a surge in border crossings on the U.S.-Mexico border.
The government of Mexico sent two 727s filled with federal police to its southern border with Guatemala to stop a caravan of U.S.-bound migrants following Trump's threats to cut off foreign aid. https://t.co/nu7ej6rmHO
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) October 18, 2018
But it’s not just this caravan. Axios reports Trump administration’s severe measures to control border crossings aren’t working.
“Border Patrol agents arrested 16,658 family members in September, the highest one-month total on record and an 80 percent increase from July,” the Washington Post reports.
- If accurate, that’s more than a 50% jump from last year, which was already an outlier.
- “In September, U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended more than 41,400 undocumented immigrants, up from 37,544 in August,” NBC News reports.
Trump doesn’t appreciate all these complexities. More broadly, it bears repeating that the bigger package of “tough” measures Trump favors to “solve” the larger immigration problem — a border wall, deep cuts to legal immigration — got the fewest of any votes in the Senate, meaning his solutions don’t have enough Republican support to pass Congress. Trump doesn’t know what to do about that, either, except threaten government shutdowns that aren’t going to happen.
Having campaigned on a promise to stop illegal immigration and build a border wall, Trump now faces a spiraling enforcement challenge with no ready solutions. The soaring arrest numbers — and a new caravan of Central American migrants heading north — have left him in a furious state, White House aides say.
One thing is clear–immigration and child separation will be at the top of a lot of voters minds this November.