Immigration
Thousands of West African migrants ‘pour’ through U.S. southern border with guidance from social media apps
Social media has aided the journey for thousands of West African migrants to “pour” into the United States. Reports from the border say thousands are coming to the United States illegally after they learned of unknown paths through Nicaragua.
Specifically, reports say Mauritians have been using social media apps such as WhatsApp, Instagram and others, “to direct fellow migrants along the route, stopping at Turkey, Colombia, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, where they are carried onto a bus by smugglers to cross the U.S.-Mexican border” reports Foreign Desk News. “On social media outlets like TikTok, smugglers have advertised the American dream with photos of Nicaraguan visas.”
“The entire world knows that under the Biden administration, our borders are wide open and that coming to the U.S. illegally will be accommodated and rewarded,” explained Ira Mehlman, media director at the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
“The Biden policies are also being exploited by our adversaries throughout the world who are more than happy to use them to cause disruption and destabilization in the U.S.,” he added.
Officials say the new arrivals will outnumber the estimated 8,000 foreign-born Mauritanians in the U.S. With many Mauritanians fleeing their country from natural disasters, military coups, and economic collapse, smugglers have taken to social media to promote the journey, advertising packages of flights that follow new routes.
Foreign Desk News adds that President Biden’s inauguration, Border Patrol officials have encountered around 6.9 million migrants, with 1.7 million escaping custody and settling in the country.
Immigration
Mexican railway forced to suspend trains after numerous deaths from migrants jumping on board
A railway was forced to temporarily suspend train runs in northern Mexico due to the dangers and injuries occurring from numerous migrants attempting to climb aboard its freight cars.
The Mexican railway Ferromex said it had to halt 60 trains carrying cargo that would fill a whopping 1,800 tractor trailers due to the at least “half-dozen regrettable cases of injuries or deaths” of migrants jumping on the freight cars, the company said in a statement. Many migrants even hopped on moving freight cars “despite the grave danger that represents.”
International trade will be affected by the halt, and the impact of the train stoppage will be “very important,” said Ana Bertha Gutiérrez, the international trade coordinator for the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness.
The Associated Press reports:
The company said there were about 1,500 people gathered at a rail yard in the city of Torreon, in the northern border state of Coahuila. The company also reported about 800 migrants waiting at the freight yards in Irapuato, in the north-central state of Guanajuato.
About 1,000 people were reported to be riding freight cars on the train line that connects the city of Chihuahua and the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez.
Gutiérrez noted the impact could be felt in industrial states like Nuevo Leon, Baja California and Chihuahua, given their links to the U.S. market.
Migrants have long used the trains, known collectively as “The Beast,” to hitch rides from as far south as Oaxaca state to the U.S. border. About a decade ago, the Mexican government briefly staged raids on the trains to discourage the practice, but later largely abandoned the effort, the Associated Press added.
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