The Truth About the Caravan
We’ve been hearing a lot about the migrant caravan in the news. The caravan is a giant group of people that emanated for the most part in
Honduras, and are heading up to the US. A lot has been said about this caravan, so
I decided to go down, check it out for myself, and figure out what is the reality
versus the fiction.I’m here in southern Mexico in the state of
Oaxaca, an area of Mexico which is riddled with narco crime and cursed with extreme
poverty. It’s also where the camp then base of the caravan is for the night. They’re settled here as they continue their trek on the United States. Despite
the framing of the caravan is being full of women and children, the reality on
the ground is quite different. Approximately 90-95% of the migrants
are male. The major narrative being pushed by the press has been that the migrants
are leaving Honduras because they’re escaping extreme violence and that their
lives are under constant threat, setting up the strategy that they would be able
to enter the US by asking for asylum. So I started by asking them a simple
question: “Why are you coming to America?”There’s a massive logistical effort
under the way akin to moving an army, and it’s clearly costing someone millions of
dollars for the transportation, food, water, medicine, and services that are being
provided for the members of the caravan. It’s a supply chain that’s been
delivered by an army of trucks, which are all necessary to keep this enormous
group moving forward. This is a truck actually carrying generic Gatorade. The Mexican government also seems to be sending police to
escort the dozens of buses and trucks that are faring the migrants and supplies
along the route to the next destination.Ever-present among the thousands of migrants
are workers ofPueblo Sin Fronteras
clad in black t-shirts and colored vests.
Pueblo Sin Fronteras
means ‘People Without Borders’. They’re the ones that seem to
be most involved in organizing and mobilizing this caravan. The organization, as
the name implies, is looking to create a world without borders – which seems to be
one of the reasons why they organized this caravan in the first place – to flout American
sovereignty. Many of the Fronterao workers have a very interesting perspective
on the United States, particularly since they’re trying to move all these
migrants into our country. “The US is nothing, because there is a lot of racism there,” one worker tells me.One of the organizers
on the ground withPueblo Sin Fronteras explains how they helped the
migrants game the US immigration system. “We’re working on collaborating with a
lot of organizations to do large-scale orientations, so people can understand their options
for refugee and humanitarian protection here in Mexico as well as their rights to request asylum in the United States,” she explains, “and provide mass presentations about ‘know your rights,’ they call them, ‘know your rights’ presentations. We like to bring people together and make sure
they understand that they can organize and they can fight for their rights. We’re training folks on how to deal with the press. So, I was just telling Fox News here, it’s like, asking really scary questions.”How many of them are there from the organization? Hundreds.
The United Nations has
been very active with the caravan from the moment it crossed the border. Several of
its agencies are on the ground with them and have expended a great deal of time
and money on helping the caravan move along. I made a call to Maria Rubi from
the office of the UN High Commission for Refugees.Ami Horowitz: “Maria, now you guys have been on the
ground with the refugees from the moment they crossed the border, correct?”Maria Rubi: “Yes, that’s right.”
Ami: “It’s a
number of organizations, right? Not just the High Commission for Refugees, but also UNICEF and some other UN organizations that are helping them, right?”Maria: “Yeah, yeah, that’s right. I mean, I can tell you that for example in Tapachula in Chiapas we were the only one that is still there. Now here in Mexico City, you see more organizations, but yeah, that’s right. We’ve been there for them way before.
Ami: “After Trump’s consistent attacks on the UN this is kind of a great way to stick it back in the eye of Trump, huh?”
Maria: “Yeah [laughs] yeah.”
Continuing my trip with the migrants I decided to
hop on the back of one of these trucks and hitch a ride with them. So now we’re heading
to the next location will it’ll be food, water, and shelter for everybody. This is
one of the many many trucks and buses that are part of this caravan that are
faring these guys from one location to another on the way to the United States. At the base camp there’s a mobile hospital stocked with enough pharmaceutical
drugs to make Keith Richards blush. There’s also plenty of doctors and nurses
attending to all the migrants needs.While it does seem as the majority of these migrants are friendly
and simply trying to make a better life for themselves and their families, there’s an undeniable element of the migrants who are violent and dangerous. And
many of the migrants know this, and some have experienced it. “Yes, there may be some bad people here. Some may be escaping from bad things in their past. For the crimes of some we pay the price,” one migrant tells me.There are probably several billion
people in the world who are seeking a better life. Do these migrants think that all of
them should be allowed to enter the US? Should America let in anybody who wants
to come in? It seems to me that there are leftist organizations that are using
these migrants as a tool to push a certain political agenda which includes the
weakening of American sovereignty and our border security. And unfortunately
these migrants are going to be caught in the crossfire.
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)