Mexican president dubs Biden “the migrant president,” worries surge in illegal immigration will help gangs, cartels
Mexico has expressed concerns that Democrat President Joe Biden is encouraging a massive surge in legal immigration to the United States through Mexico with his lax policies on managing the border crisis.
Since taking office, Biden has rescinded much of the controls put in place by the Trump administration and encouraged illegal entry into the United States with promises of amnesty for asylum seekers.
His policies have led to a flood of illegal immigration and a spike in business for Mexico’s violent drug cartels. Reuters reports that Mexican government officials are “worried the new U.S. administration’s asylum policies are stoking illegal immigration and creating business for organized crime.”
In the month of February alone, more than 100,000 migrants were detained for illegal entry into the United States, the highest for the month of February since 2006.
Video taken in SE Texas this morning. Huge line of people waiting for smugglers to ferry them across the Rio Grande into the US. Video courtesy of Tripwires and Triggers. #BorderCrisis pic.twitter.com/KtONTzfP85
— Charlotte Cuthbertson (@charlottecuthbo) March 11, 2021
“They see him as the migrant president, and so many feel they’re going to reach the United States,” Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said of Biden. “We need to work together to regulate the flow, because this business can’t be tackled from one day to the next.”
Mexican intelligence has found that the country’s drug cartels are “diversifying methods of smuggling and winning clients as they eye U.S. measures that will ‘incentivize migration.”
Other key takeaways include:
- U.S. policies that Mexican officials believe are driving the criminal activity include “support for victims of gangs and violence, streamlining of the legalization process, and suspension of Trump-era accords that deported people to Central America.”
- The Mexican cartels changed their modus operandi “from the day Biden took office” and are now showing “unprecedented” levels of sophistication in their criminal activity, which includes “briefing clients on the latest immigration rules, using technology to outfox authorities, and disguising smuggling operations as travel agencies.” The smugglers communicate with the migrants on numerous social media channels to update them on “impending checkpoints, when freight trains they can jump on pass, where to stay and how to navigate immigration laws.”
- Those trying to enter the U.S. are now traveling in smaller groups and are taking less traveled routes to avoid detection, routes the report said were even more dangerous than the other ones.
- The smugglers are telling the migrants to go to their local authorities and make complaints that they have been the victims of crime, so that they can apply for asylum in the U.S. Migrants are being told to bring children so it is easier for them to apply for asylum.
- To ease their passage, smugglers advise Central American clients to register complaints with authorities saying they have been victims of extortion or, for young men, that they have faced death threats from street gangs, the assessments show.
- Mexico is also concerned that “there could be a significant influx in migrants from outside the region – the Caribbean, Asia, Africa and the Middle East – as coronavirus-led border restrictions begin easing.”
2024 Student Journalism Conference
Applications are now open for The Democracy Fund's third annual Student Journalism Conference. This is a one-of-a-kind, all-expenses-paid opportunity for young aspiring journalists in Canada!
TDF Student Journalism Conference 2024Don't Get Censored
Big Tech is censoring us. Sign up so we can always stay in touch.
Don't Get Censored
Big Tech is censoring us. Sign up so we can always stay in touch.