DHS Says There Are “500 Criminals” in Migrant Caravan

Article audio sponsored by The John Birch Society

During a conference call with reporters on November 19, Department of Homeland Security officials said there are at least “500 criminals” among the migrant caravan that has reached the Mexican side of the San Ysidro border crossing just south of San Diego. The officials said that “most of the caravan members are not women and children,” but are single adult or teen males with the women and children having been pushed to the front of the caravan in order to receive sympathetic media coverage.

Fox News reported that DHS officials said there are about 6,000 people in Tijuana waiting to be processed at the San Ysidro border crossing, with more still arriving.

A report in The New York Times on November 18 about the arrival of thousands of caravan members in Tijuana cited the city’s mayor, Juan Manuel Gastélum, who estimated that if all of the Central American migrants traveling north come to the Tijuana and seek asylum in the United States, it could take six months for their claims to be processed in San Ysidro.

“We have to wait — for how long?” the Times quoted Lenin Herrera Batres, who joined the caravan with his wife and their two-year-old son from the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula.

“We don’t have the money to stay here for one month, two months,” he said.

The statement by Herrera Batres raises a disturbing question. If the family does not have enough money to stay in Tijuana for a month or two, how does he expect to survive in the United States? Apparently, caravan members consider it a foregone conclusion that Americans will take care of them — at taxpayer expense.

In “How to Solve the Illegal Immigration Problem,” an article posted by the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity two years ago, former congressman Ron Paul dismissed the Trump plan to build a wall at our border to keep out illegal immigrants. Instead of a wall, Paul suggested:

How to tackle the real immigration problem? Eliminate incentives for those who would come here to live off the rest of us, and make it easier and more rational for those who wish to come here legally to contribute to our economy. No walls, no government databases, no biometric national ID cards. But not a penny in welfare for immigrants. It’s really that simple.