CIUDAD ACUNA, Mexico (March 30, 2021) — The Center for Immigration Studies traveled to southern Mexico to assess the success of President Biden’s use of virtual diplomacy, an in-person delegation, and taxpayer cash to pressure Mexico to control its southern border. Through interviews with migrants who successfully crossed from Guatemala into Mexico, the Center identified at least five methods by which immigrants are end-running the Mexican military effort.
Todd Bensman, the Center’s senior national security fellow, said, “The 100,000 illegal aliens apprehended in February – a 15-year record high – indicate that the Mexican military deployment in southern Mexico is not effective. The deployment worked in 2020 because it was part of a bigger plan that included push-back policies at the American border. The 'Remain in Mexico' Migrant Protection Protocols and assertive ICE repatriations of deportable illegal immigrants by air back to home countries worked to encourage untold thousands of aliens to stay home. But that powerful combination no longer exists.”
“If the Biden administration plans to rely entirely on Mexico’s ability to stop the wave of illegal immigrants it conjured, no amount of U.S. development assistance cash and Covid-19 vaccine is going to plug the widening holes in Mexico’s southern cordon,” Bensman added.
In speaking with the immigrants who successfully bypassed the Mexican military, the Center discovered the use of:
- The Mexican “Humanitarian Visa” End-Run
The Mexican government apparently is issuing “humanitarian visas” and other travel permission slips to foreign national applicants allowing them to pass through the Mexican military checkpoints that were put there to stop them. The issuance of such permissions to regular economic migrants conflicts directly with the Mexican government’s — and the new American administration’s — stated policy objective of stymying their northward marches to the U.S. border.
- The Bribery End-Run
Many immigrants are being forced to pay Mexican troops, sometimes at multiple stops, who board their buses and demand payment for allowing them to continue their northward journeys.
- End-Run on the Trains
Some migrants avoid the national guard and their joint INM checkpoints by hopping on top of trains that take them beyond into central Mexico.
- End-Run by Foot
Migrants also avoid paying bribes and riding train rooftops and instead hitchhike to within sight of a check points.
- A Flying End-Run
Some immigrants fly over the military operations, buying flight tickets to fly north, well beyond the national guard roadblocks.
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