Guatemalan head of intelligence Mario Duarte said during a visit to Washington Tuesday that the migrant caravans heading to the U.S. southern border are “well-planned” and “well-organized” by those wanting to “weaponize those in need.”
“This was not a spontaneous event. It was well-planned. It was well-organized,” Duarte, head of the Secretariat of Strategic Intelligence of Guatemala, said at an event hosted by the Center for a Free Secure Society at the National Press Club.
He said different intelligence, law enforcement, and military agencies found evidence that the October caravan from Honduras to the U.S. — which at one point contained about 40,000 migrants — was organized in advance.
There was a call on October 5 in Honduras for citizens to join a “massive migration walk to the United States,” he said. “We detected logistical preparation throughout Guatemala and Mexico, to be able to bring all these people to the U.S. southern border.”
He said the main organization behind the caravans was a non-governmental organization based out of Chicago, called Pueblos Sin Fronteras, led by organizer and pastor Emma Lozano.
“They started working with Honduran, Guatemalan, and Mexico counterparts,” he said. “The organization was impressive to say the least. They used mainly [social media apps] WhatsApp and Facebook.”
He said Bartolo Fuentes, a Honduran activist, was the main leader of the caravan on the ground, and that he came into Guatemala beforehand to scout and send money to places migrants could stay as they moved through Guatemala towards Mexico. Duarte said the group also connected with international NGOs like Oxfam.
He also gave details of the tactics the caravan used as it pushed into Guatemala.
“We had a big, huge contingent of police officers protecting our border. Unfortunately this migrant groups put women, the elderly and children as young as 40 days of age at the front, and started pushing and pressing against our police force,” he said.
“We could not even use tear gas … because some of the smoke could hurt the small children,” he said.
“It became an unsustainable situation. Children were being pressed against the fence. Some of them were actually were already suffocating because of all the pressure behind them. So we had to retreat our police forces and to allow these migrants to go through our border,” he said.
Duarte said Guatemala heeded the United States’ call to try to stop the caravan from reaching the U.S. border. He said they set up 12 different roadblocks on the way to Mexico, to delay the migrants.
“Through that work, we also identified a total of ten operational leaders with the caravan,” he said.
Duarte said they also identified more than 100 migrants from the Middle East traveling in the caravan — a claim President Trump had alluded to in an October 22 tweet.
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
“We also intercepted a total of 126 special interest aliens during these caravans, special interest aliens from countries and with probable links to Islamic extremists,” Duarte said.
Duarte warned that another big group of migrants coming from different countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and from Cuba, is headed to the U.S.
And remember, there’s no crisis at the border!
Oh, and in San Diego, as Democrats demand a reduction in detention beds, Democrats are suing the federal government for releasing illegal immigrants into the city. I wonder if Democrats would mind explaining exactly WHAT the f**k they want?
They traced the organization to a pastor in Chicago, where does their funding come from, you can trace this back to the UN and then to the State Dept, yup US tax dollars sent for grants to the UN sucked up by George Soros fronts then to smaller organizations.
This must be shut down now turn off the tap.
These photos of grossly overweight women checking their brand new smart phones, as to where to best roll over our border, find a border agent then claim asylum. Funny they are not walking this trek they are being bused and trucked with mexican police escort.
Knowing this the Dems want to give Mexico 10 billion in aid.
@Deplorable Me: Democrats are like dealing with the many factions of the middle east. All terrorist no one goal, no hope for peace or truce.
The “deal” to not shut down the Government so many pages it cant possibly be fully reviewed for poison by the deadline.
@kitt: And while Democrats begin to whine about the debt, something they gave no thought to as Obama piled up $10 trillion of the crap, this bill is loaded with pork and waste so Democrats can skewer Trump for either rejecting it or adding to the debt.
Its no doupt that the CFR and George Soros the UN and the DNC are behind it all as part of the planed North American(Soviet)Union
@ Deplorable Me:
I heard that the Guatemalan Intel Minister will say anything you want for 50 dollars US, which is way cheaper than officials in Mexico.
What really worries me is that by playing this “immigration” issue the way he has, Trump is laying the ground work for the next Democratic president to declare a National Humanitarian Emergency at the border and throw it wide open. “If you open it, MILLIONS will come!” FREE CITIZENSHIP! WHOOPIE! MORE DEMS!Pelosi is already stating publicly what some of the Dem reactions will be “next time,” and it will do to Trump’s legacy exactly what Trump has done to Obama’s – undo it. We are drifting further and further into reactionary pendulum-swinging, and nothing good comes of that. A lasting consensus is the only legacy worth building.