“¡Trump es el diablo!”
On Friday Todd Bensman, senior fellow for the Center for Immigration Studies, spoke to War Room from Tapachula, the southernmost city in Mexico, where migrants told him they hope to reach the U.S. before the November 5th election and a possible Trump victory.
Bensman explained that mass numbers of migrants were transported south from northern Mexico to keep them off of the U.S. border in order to support Kamala Harris’ campaign for president. “Eight months ago the Biden Harris administration cut a deal with Mexico to decongest our border for the election, to make it look less like the spectacle that it was,” he said. As a result of that deal, migrants are being contained by Mexican authorities in “cage cities” in the southern state of Chiapas. Tens of thousands of immigrants from all over the world are “trapped and bottled up, here,” he said.
Although the exact terms of the agreement between the Biden Harris administration and Mexico have not been made public, Bensman surmises that the deal is likely time-limited. “The American people need to understand that after November fifth, there’s a pretty good chance that the Mexicans are going to be like, we have met our obligation, you are all released.”
Bensman said about 150,000 migrants are trapped by roadblocks in Tapachula, while tens of thousands more are in the city of Villahermosa and other “caged cities” in the South of Mexico.
A wide range of nationalities have reached Mexico, including from places as exotic as Vietnam and Albania. “They’re pouring in from all over the world,” Bensman said. “At least 60,000 Chinese have crossed our southern border in the last 18 months. The vast majority came right through this town. I see them all over the place.”
Bensman observed that unlike migrants from other countries, Chinese are not prevented from traveling north. “They are very wealthy, the elite of Chinese society. Business people, professionals, and they have a lot of cash.” Bensman explained that Chinese migrants are able to stay at the best hotels and buy passage through Mexico by paying the cartels to assist them. “The whole world is coming through here,” he said.
Bensman described the situation in Tapachula as “an absolute pressure cooker,” not only because of all the migrants being transported south, but also because more are coming across the Guatemala border every day.
In a video report posted on YouTube, Bensman said cartel coyote human smugglers are charging $100 per head for migrants to be ferried across the Rio Suchiate from Guatemala into Mexico on makeshift rafts.
Bensman also posted drone video footage on the social media platform X, showing a “mass illegal migration mall” under construction in Tapachula “that’ll house UN agencies and nonprofit migration-help groups under one convenient one-stop shop roof.”
A limited number of migrants are already on the move. Bensman said a relatively small number of migrants are receiving CBP One appointments, and they get permission from the Mexican government to fly to Tijuana or take buses escorted by Mexican police and Guardia Nacional.
Mexican authorities are also permitting a caravan of about 1,000 people to proceed from Tapachula on foot toward Mexico City, Newsweek Español reported on Thursday. “The group’s migrants said they want to cross [the U.S. border] in November, in case legal routes are closed if Trump wins the presidential election.”
On October 1, soldiers of the Mexican Army opened fire on a vehicle carrying migrants in Chiapas when it tried to evade a military checkpoint. Eight migrants were killed and 10 more were injured, according to SDP Noticias.
At the moment, Bensman is the only English-language periodista reporting on the migrant crisis in southern Mexico. Find his work at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), on X at @BensmanTodd, Truth Social at @ToddBensman, or at his website ToddBensman.com.