Yesterday President Trump claimed there are a number of criminals traveling in the illegal caravan, which is now 7,000 people strong and making its way through Mexico to the United States.
Sadly, it looks like Mexico’s Police and Military are unable to stop the Caravan heading to the Southern Border of the United States. Criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in. I have alerted Border Patrol and Military that this is a National Emergy. Must change laws!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 22, 2018
His usual critics pounced, saying there is no evidence to back up his claim. President Trump encouraged reporters to take their cameras and do some digging.
"Take your camera, go into the middle, and search. You’re going to find MS-13, you’re going to find Middle Eastern, you’re going to find everything," Trump said at the White House Tuesday. "And guess what? We’re not allowing them in our country. We want safety. We want safety."
Turns out, he was right. While violent criminals do not make up the majority of the caravan, there are some using it to get to the United States.
"Criminals is everywhere. Okay. There's criminals in here. I mean, there is. It's just not that many," Nixon Hernandez, an illegal alien from Honduras, told Fox News. "It's good people trying to get through Mexico and get to the United States. That doesn't mean everybody's a criminal."
Violent transnational crime organizations like MS-13 have used the never ending illegal immigration crisis in the past to smuggle gang members. The organization has also used detention centers to recruit unaccompanied minors into the gang.
According to Border Patrol sources, violent MS-13 gang members are using the Nogales processing center in Arizona as a recruitment hub and as a transfer point for gang members to get into the United States.
The Red Cross has set up phone banks inside the processing center so unaccompanied minors can make phone calls to family members inside the United States and back home in Central America. According to sources, those phones are also being used by MS-13 members to communicate with gang members already in the United States and operating in cities like Atlanta, New York and Chicago. Further, many teenaged males inside the facility have approached Border Patrol agents and have said gang members have tried to recruit them from shared cells.