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The news that Congolese possibly infected with Ebola virus were streaming across the southwest border of the United States with the tsunami of Central American migrants was bad enough.
Even worse is the latest report from the Center for Immigration Studies: 35,000 Africans are tramping north for the U.S. border in the hope of ensconcing themselves in U.S. sanctuary cities.
They’re headed this way through the Darién Gap, a 66-mile long swath of rough territory in the borderlands of Colombia and Panama.
More False Asylum Claims
The 35,000 Cameroonians, Ghanaians, and Congolese, along with Haitians, Cubans, and some from the Middle East, are “on an infamous migrant passage through which migrants have long funneled from South America to North America: the Darien Gap,” wrote Tod Bensman, a national security fellow at CIS.
Bensman heard the news from two in-country sources: Panama-based author and freelance journalist Chuck Holton, and Diane Edrington, a nurse who volunteers for Panama Missions and recently returned from the area. Holton’s figure of 35,000 came from government sources.
The migrants land in Ecuador and head north.
Holton and Edrington separately told me in recent phone and email interviews that a surge is underway the likes of which neither has ever seen and which obviously surpasses what I witnessed in December. Both saw massive numbers of Africans overwhelming government camps and smuggling infrastructure. … Holton and Edrington did not hear any of this from afar; they were on the ground, among the migrants.
Holton confirmed what U.S. border authorities say: “Migrants” know they’re here to stay if they can cross the border.
Holton told Bensman the “migrants” admit they came to falsely claim asylum and “take advantage of the disarray and laws about which they’ve all heard, from media reporting and those who already made it, that guarantee they will get to live and work for years in the United States, and probably permanently.”
The “migrants” know the time to land at the border is now, with Democrats refusing to help President Trump close the border to illegal aliens:
“‘Trump wants to keep us out, but he can’t do it,’” Holton said he was repeatedly told in Turbo, Colombia as African migrants were preparing to board boats to the jungle trails for 10-day, smuggler-led wilderness treks into Panama. “They were very clear about that. ‘If I can get in now, I’m going to get while the getting’s good.’”
The “migrants” also know that leftist-controlled sanctuary cities thwart the efforts of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and will welcome them.
The migrants he interviewed also were well aware of the time it takes for their asylum claims to be processed in a severely backlogged American system and that this was a major factor in deciding to leave home. …
“A lot of these guys obviously do not qualify for asylum,” Holton told me. “When they talk to me, they don’t have a problem telling me it’s for economic benefits, to get a better job, to have a better life.”
No matter, Holton said. By claiming asylum, “they know they’ll have to let them into the U.S. and that they can stay for at least three years” before any ruling on their claims comes back. “They’re very clear on that.”
In other words, just like Central Americans, the Africans have been informed just what lies to tell to stay in the country.
As well, Holton told Bensman, CNN broadcasts infomercials that not only tell the migrants how to get into the United States but also provide “lists of cities that will welcome you with open arms.”
Edrginton told Bensman that Panama is “overwhelmed” with migrants, and he backed up Holton’s evaluation of the African problem: “There are a lot of Africans now.”
Pass-Through Pact
One reason the flow continues North? In December, Bensman disclosed “a formal bilateral policy” whereby Panama and Costa Rica “systematically transport migrants coming off the Darien Gap through their own territories and on to Nicaragua, where the smugglers can pick them up and keep them moving to the U.S. border.”
Bensman rightly observed that the “controlled flow would likely spark controversy in the United States if anyone knew about it.” Panama “feeds, houses, shelters, and medically treats the migrants it collects out of the Darien jungle,” he wrote, “then puts them on buses and hands them off to the Costa Ricans, who likewise move … the hot potato problem to the U.S. southern border.”
Bensman also noted that the flood of illegals raises serious security concerns, given the number of Middle Eastern Muslims in the illegal-alien tsunami.
And as The New American reported of the Congolese, the “migrants” might also cross the border with the deadly Ebola virus.
Photo: Stadtratte/iStock/Getty Images Plus
