TRUMP SEEKS DEAL WITH MEXICO TO AVERT INVASION: Agreement is aptly named “Remain in Mexico.”

For several months the human tsunami of thousands of individuals heading north from Central America, through Mexico and ultimately to the United States, has captured headlines and the attention of the media and politicians in both the U.S. and Mexico.

While the “caravan of migrants,” as it has come to be known, appears to emanate from Central America, there is a great potential that citizens of countries from outside the Western Hemisphere, including so-called “Special Interest Countries” — that is to say, countries that have a nexus with terrorism — may also have embedded themselves within the caravan along with individuals who have criminal histories and aliens who may have been previously deported from the United States.

I addressed the potential for terrorists to see in the caravan an opportunity to gain entry into the United States in my article, “The Impending Alien Invasion.”

It is also worth considering that under the provisions of 8 U.S. Code § 1326 an alien who is deported from the United States and then reenters the country without first being granted lawful authority to return is committing a felony that may carry a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.

When President Trump issued a proclamation that would deny aliens who entered the United States without inspection the right to file an application for asylum, U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tigar of San Francisco issued a Temporary Restraining Order to block the implementation of that proclamation. As I noted in my recent article, the judge was ignoring the Constitution, the 9/11 Commission Report and common sense.

Of late, polls conducted in the United States have shown that within the last month more Americans have come to consider illegal immigration to be the issue of greatest concern confronting America.

On November 22, 2018 (Thanksgiving Day) I participated in a segment on the Fox News program Fox & Friends that focused on this very issue.

Poll: Americans now see immigration as top issue facing US 
Nov. 22, 2018 – Reaction from retired INS Senior Special Agent Michael Cutler; Republican strategist Peter Lumaj and former Florida congressional candidate Noelle Nikpour

It is my opinion, and one shared by the other participants in that Fox News segment, that Americans’ heightened concerns about illegal immigration are directly related to that caravan approaching the U.S./Mexican border.

President Trump, who made illegal immigration the centerpiece of his successful campaign for the Presidency, has responded to the threats and potential threats posed by the caravan if the members of that caravan ultimately succeeded in entering the United States and vanishing into communities across the United States. Trump ordered members of the U.S. military to the U.S./Mexican border to begin erecting barriers and to support the efforts of the beleaguered U.S. Border Patrol.

Unlike previous administrations that have refused to secure that dangerous and highly porous border that enabled millions of illegal aliens to enter the United States without inspection, and tons of narcotics to be smuggled into the U.S., it has been clear from the outset that President Trump was determined not to permit this invasion of our borders and our nation. This, even despite Congress not funding the border wall that he has wanted to erect.

Meanwhile, as the talking heads and members of the mainstream media speculated as to what will ultimately happen, it would appear that Donald Trump, the “Deal Maker in Chief” has cut a deal with incoming Mexican President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his administration. On November 24, 2018 the Chicago Tribune published a report that had initially run in the Washington Post, “Deal with Mexico would make asylum seekers wait outside U.S. border: Mexican officials.”

This excerpt from the newspaper report explains how President Trump may have convinced the Mexicans to cooperate:

Alarmed by Trump’s deployment of U.S. military forces to California, Arizona and Texas, and his threats to close busy border crossings, Mexican officials were further determined to take action after migrants traveling as part of a caravan forced their way onto Mexican soil last month, pushing past police blockades at the border with Guatemala.

For the first time, a president of the United States has begun the process of negotiating an agreement with Mexico that could prove to be a true immigration “game changer.”

Under the agreement, presuming it is finalized, aliens who want to pursue asylum applications in the United States would have to wait in Mexico until their applications could be filed and processed, turning chaos into a more orderly system.

For decades aliens and their smugglers had come to count on chaos along the U.S./Mexican border that would enable them to run our nation’s borders and use the claim of “credible fear” as a “Plan B” if they were caught by the U.S. Border Patrol. If they were not caught by the Border Patrol they would simply head to towns and cities across the United States and not bother filing an application for asylum.

Additionally, aliens who filed applications for asylum at ports of entry were often paroled into the United States where they also disappeared into communities across our nation as did aliens who were apprehended by the Border Patrol and served with Notices to Appear (NTAs). Frustrated Border Patrol agents came to call those “Notices to Disappear!”

If final arrangements can be made with Mexico, the United States will impose an orderly system that will give Customs and Border Inspectors and others who will be assigned to adjudicate applications for asylum the time to imbue the system with a bit more integrity.

While it won’t eliminate fraud in the system, it will represent a major step to help combat fraud. As more aliens come to realize that they will have to wait in Mexico and that their applications will be more thoroughly scrutinized, it is likely that more aliens will be deterred from filing fraud-laden applications. As the number of applications fall, the ability to more thoroughly scrutinize the applications that are filed will increase.

This will certainly enhance U.S. national security because, as I noted in my extensive article, “Immigration Fraud- Lies That Kill,“ visa fraud and immigration fraud were identified by the 9/11 Commission as the key methods of terrorists to enter the United States and embed themselves as they went about their deadly preparations.

There are many reasons why, for the first time, the government of Mexico would agree to work cooperatively with the United States over an extremely serious immigration-related issue. It is likely, of course that President Trump was not just posturing when he said he would cut off aid to Mexico and other countries who permit the United States to be invaded by illegal aliens.

Additionally, as the newspaper article I cited above noted:

According to outlines of the plan, known as Remain in Mexico, asylum applicants at the border will have to stay in Mexico while their cases are processed, potentially ending the system, which Trump decries as “catch and release,” that has generally allowed those seeking refuge to wait on safer U.S. soil.

“For now, we have agreed to this policy of Remain in Mexico,” said Olga Sánchez Cordero, Mexico’s incoming interior minister, the top domestic policy official for López Obrador, who takes office Dec. 1. In an interview with The Washington Post, she called it a “short-term solution.”

“The medium- and long-term solution is that people don’t migrate,” Sánchez Cordero said. “Mexico has open arms and everything, but imagine one caravan after another after another. That would also be a problem for us.”

In other words, Mexico is being flooded with citizens from Central America that are stirring anger and animosity among Mexican citizens who are far less tolerant of the intrusion of these aliens into their country. It would appear that the government of Mexico is motivated to end the flood of illegal aliens who are seeking to use Mexico as a stepping stone to the United States.

While the U.S. mainstream media accuses any Americans who oppose illegal immigration of being bigots and racists, Mexicans who are also members of the Latino ethnic community, share the same concerns that Americans have about the dangers and difficulties that illegal immigration creates.

Lee Gelernt, the ACLU attorney who has led the charge against the Trump administration efforts to restore integrity to the immigration system, was quoted in the article as stating, “The Administration ought to concentrate on providing a fair and lawful asylum process in the U.S. rather than inventing more and more ways to try to short-circuit it.”

Here is something Mr. Gelernt should consider: the United States has had the most generous immigration system in the world and continues to do so. When you consider how many applications for asylum are denied because of fraud or because the aliens themselves fail to go forward with the process, it is apparent that the majority of these aliens have been using bogus claims of “credible fear” as an (illegal) alternative to the lawful visa process to gain entry into the United States. This makes a mockery of our immigration system and imposes dangers and hardships on America and Americans.

There is nothing “fair or lawful” about asylum fraud or illegal immigration.

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images originally appeared in FrontPage Magazine. It is republished with permission.

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