The United States currently faces a humanitarian and national sovereignty crisis as thousands of illegal aliens seek entry at the country’s southern border. Information supplied to members of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform reveals that there were hundreds of people with criminal histories traveling within two migrant caravans.
A 2018 caravan contained 660 convicted criminals, including three convicted of murder. Another caravan included 860 with criminal histories. Here are the details:
In October 2018, CBP’s Office of Intelligence (OI) tracked one caravan estimated to include nearly 8,000 individuals that arrived south of California in December 2018. ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) established that 660 of these individuals had U.S. criminal convictions-nearly 40 were convicted of assault or aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and three individuals were convicted of murder.
In January 2019, CBP OI tracked a caravan that departed Honduras with more than 3,300 individuals. ICE HSI identified 860 individuals with U.S. criminal histories, including over 20 convicted of assault or aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, nearly 30 convicted of sexual offenses, two convicted of violence against law enforcement, and one convicted of attempted murder.
These incidents are continuing. CBP is currently monitoring another “movement of several groups ranging in size from 1,000 to 4,000” in the Mexican states of Chiapas and Veracruz.
As Congress prepares to pass legislation to address the border crisis, lawmakers on both sides of the political spectrum have voiced serious objections, though for completely different reasons.
In a lengthy tweet thread published Friday, conservative Congressman Chip Roy (R-TX) warned that both the Senate and the House legislation would actually exacerbate some of the current problems.
Today, @HouseDemocrats introduced their border supplemental bill in response to the request from @realDonaldTrump & the pressure applied by the @freedomcaucus. We are still reviewing the text of the Senate & House versions. Initial observations: (1/x) #EndBorderCrisisNow
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) June 21, 2019
While we all desperately want $ for humanitarian relief, Senate GOP appears to be moving a supplemental that will very likely worsen the crisis, & the House Dems’ version is worse. Both will further incentivize traffickers, cartels, & perpetuate catch & release... (2/x)
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) June 21, 2019
The senate and house bills provide little to no funding for additional beds for adults or families. Beds are critical for proper screening, proper care, & proper enforcement to drive down the incentives for future flow. (3/x)
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) June 21, 2019
Senate version cuts WH funding request for ICE more than 50% - from $534.5 million to $204 million.
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) June 21, 2019
The House Dem version provides no tangible resources for ICE –reducing even the Senate amount to $128.2 million total, none for personnel or beds. (4/x)
Almost every dollar will be outsourced to other agencies, components or contractors for medical expenses or transportation with the exception of $20 million for ankle bracelets, which are a proven failure and perpetuate catch and release. (5/x)
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) June 21, 2019
The bills would perpetuate “catch & release.” Though the senate & house bills offer needed resources for ORR in HHS for the care of unaccompanied minors, w/o deterrent resources the ORR is a magnet, & worse, neither bill provides resources for detaining families & adults. (6/x)
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) June 21, 2019
Senate provides $708 million for migrant facilities, but includes restrictive language that effectively means no additional housing will be available for likely 9 months. There are no existing facilities that aren’t over capacity, & construction will take a long time. (7/x)
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) June 21, 2019
House version includes $787.5 MM for essentially tents and trailers to provide temporary shelter while migrants are processed. B/c neither includes increased detention capacity for ICE, CBP will have nowhere to take migrants once they are released from temporary custody. (8/x)
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) June 21, 2019
This means 100% of migrants crossing the border will be released into the country (as they effectively are being done now). Not only will this encourage the continued exploitation of women and children by traffickers, but will overwhelm localities in Texas and generally. (9/x)
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) June 21, 2019
Places like San Antonio (#tx21) have had a recent influx of at least 350 Congolese and Angolan aliens who are seeking asylum. DHS is out of room and can’t detain them, so they’ve been dropped off at local shelters and churches. (10/x)
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) June 21, 2019
Instead of providing money for enforcement measures, both bills include money to reimburse state & localities dealing with migrants without homes. While that is welcomed in theory, it will continue to provide incentives for illegal immigration & go to sanctuary cities. (11/x)
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) June 21, 2019
In addition to that reimbursement of $30 million in the senate version and $60 million in the house version, the bill include legal aid for migrants in custody rather than providing resources for DHS personnel along the border. (12/x)
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) June 21, 2019
In short, these bill appear at first review to help complete the human smuggling cycle rather than do anything to reduce the incentives and thwart it. As a result, we will have a continued crisis with some bandaids of (welcomed) humanitarian relief included. (13/x).
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) June 21, 2019
That cycle? Cartels drop off migrants at our border, CBP transports them to NGOs where they are aided in contacting family members who are already in the U.S., the family members pay the smuggling fees, then NGOs are reimbursed by the government for aiding aliens. (14/x)
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) June 21, 2019
This is not the system we should have. This will not secure our nation. This will not truly help migrants seeking to come here beyond basic (again, welcome) supplies and resources to provide humanitarian relief. We should do better. (15/x)
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) June 21, 2019
To be clear - the border has never in our history been less secure and more exploited than it is today (literally today). Certain cartels have operational control, our response is weak, and as a result it will continue to be exploited. #EndBorderCrisisNow (16/16) /End.
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) June 21, 2019
On the opposite side of the aisle, uber-leftist freshman Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) released a statement decrying the House legislation.
Their statement calls for abolishing ICE and lambastes both CBP and ICE, stating that “These radicalized, criminal agencies are destroying families and killing innocent children.”
"We cannot turn our backs on the abuses taking place on our own soil, executed by our own government."
— Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (@RepRashida) June 22, 2019
A joint statement from @RepPressley, @Ilhan, @RepAOC, & I.
#NotOneDollar pic.twitter.com/Mdw7ezmBct
WFAA-TV reported that on Friday Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced the deployment of an additional 1,000 Texas National Guard troops to the border. He blasted Congress for its failure to deal with the problem:
“Congress is a group of reprobates for not addressing a crisis on our border,” the governor said. “And we're not going to stand idly by and endanger the lives and safety of the State of Texas because Congress is refusing to do its job.”