It’s business as usual at the busiest border crossing between Mexico and Guatemala, where rafts of African and Central American migrants continue north unabated across the Suchiate River.
Just watched 2 groups of Africans from Congo and Angola cross illegally into Mexico from Guatemala across the Suchiate River on tube rafts. 8 men, 4 woman, 6 kids. pic.twitter.com/6MtAdmVRSh
— Charlotte Cuthbertson (@charlottecuthbo) June 27, 2019
“Just watched 2 groups of Africans from Congo and Angola cross illegally into Mexico from Guatemala across the Suchiate River on tube rafts,” The Epoch Times’ Charlotte Cuthbertson posted along with a video on Twitter. “8 men, 4 women, 6 kids.”
The video captured a typical morning along the river, with smugglers using push poles and inner tubes fastened together with rope and plywood to escort groups of migrants across. The makeshift ferry service continues to run “all day long between the two countries,” Cuthbertson reports, with goods like coffee and black market Corona crossing back into Guatemala.
For years the mass migration involved mostly Central Americans in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, but the demographic has shifted sharply in recent months with migrants from across the world, and Africa in particular, now exploiting the illegal route through Mexico.
Officials at the Mexican immigration center in Tapachula, the first north of border, are getting up to 500 new illegal immigrants per day, on average.
“Normally, the majority of the people are from Central America,” Eduardo Gallardo Gonzalez, secretary of the municipal department in Suchiate, told Cuthbertson. “But, now we are also seeing Haitians and Cubans. The majority of them cross the river on a tube raft or wade across, then they walk 40km to Tapachula.”
Through the first four calendar months of 2019, Mexican immigration officials apprehended 1,800 from Africa, 554 from India, 393 from Bangladesh, 1,000 from Haiti, and nearly 2,000 from Cuba – a trend locals contend is undoubtedly spawned by the large, high-profile migrant caravans.
“Eight months ago, because of the caravan, the migrant flow went up steeply,” Herbert Ivan Alayn Ortega, a municipal council member in Guatemala. “We as a border city here in Tecun Uman, we have always lived with the migrant situation. We have seen people from India, Asia, of many nationalities – besides the Central American people we see all the time.”
What’s not visible on the border is the 6,000 National Guard troops Mexican officials promised to deploy to stop the flow north, a key to an agreement with President Donald Trump to avert threatened tariffs.
“At this moment, the National Guard has not arrived. We do know that [they] are coming, but we do not know when.” ~ local Mexican police official https://t.co/yeh5jlpKiV
— Charlotte Cuthbertson (@charlottecuthbo) June 26, 2019
“At this moment, the National Guard has not arrived,” Gonzalez told Cuthbertson on Tuesday. “We do know that the National Guard is coming, but we do not know when.”
In the meantime, tens of thousands of migrants continue to trudge toward the U.S. border, where data and other evidence suggests there’s a lot of them who successfully circumvent the system altogether to walk freely into America.
Video posted to Facebook by Hidalgo County Young Republicans illustrates the end result of the broken immigration system, and the hypocrisy of lawmakers who have done next to nothing to fix it.
“#BORDERCRISIS This video was taken here in Hidalgo County in Los Ebanos, TX. Resident says this is EVERY SINGLE DAY ALL DAY LONG!!! Thanks to the Do Nothing Democrats who refuse to address the border invasion …,” the group posted.
The video shows well over six dozen migrants who appear to be illegal immigrants walking casually through a residential neighborhood, many with young children and infants. None seem the least bit phased by onlookers, including the folks recording the scene from a vehicle parked along Felix Martinez Drive.
“WAKE UP RGV (Rio Grande Valley)!!” the young Republicans wrote in the video post. “Watch your taxes RISE!! Instead of your money going to your families, it will be to pay for these people who can’t even work legally!!! VOTE THE DEMOCRATS OUT!!!”
The video was recorded just weeks after Democrat Congressman Henry Cuellar bragged about the role he played in cutting a proposed eight mile border barrier in the area down to only four miles, and now locals are reaping the rewards.
Cuellar, who represents the border district, called the change “a big win for the Rio Grande Valley” in April, The Monitor reports.
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