Donald Trump’s ‘migrant caravan’ war hasbegun….
Migrants approaching the U.S. border from Mexico were enveloped with tear gas Sunday after a few tried to breach the fence separating the two countries.
U.S. agents shot the gas, according to an Associated Press reporter on the scene. Children were screaming and coughing in the mayhem.
Honduran migrant Ana Zuniga, 23, said she saw migrants open a small hole in concertina wire at a gap on the Mexican side of a levee, at which point U.S. agents fired tear gas at them.
“We ran, but when you run the gas asphyxiates you more,” she told the AP while cradling her 3-year-old daughter Valery in her arms.
Mexico’s Milenio TV also showed images of several migrants at the border trying to jump over the fence. A few yards away on the U.S. side, shoppers streamed in and out of an outlet mall.
U.S. Border Patrol helicopters flew overhead, while U.S. agents held vigil on foot beyond the wire fence in California. The Border Patrol office in San Diego said via Twitter that pedestrian crossings have been suspended at the San Ysidro port of entry at both the East and West facilities. All northbound and southbound traffic was halted.
Earlier Sunday, some Central American migrants, pushed past a blockade of Mexican police standing guard near the international border crossing…..
…
Tijuana Mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum on Friday declared a humanitarian crisis in his border city of 1.6
Rep. Elijah Cummings on Sunday called on Congress to stand up against a proposed deal between Mexico and President Donald Trump that will keep those seeking asylum out of the United States.
Cummings (D-Md.) in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” said he is not supportive of a deal “because that’s not the law.”
“They should be allowed to come in, seek asylum, that’s the law,” Cummings said.
The Trump administration is working with incoming Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to keep asylum seekers out of the United States while their applications are pending in court, POLITICO reported Saturday…..
“There is no agreement of any sort between the incoming Mexican government and the US government,” future Interior Minister Olga Sanchez Cordero said in a statement.
The statement, obtained by the Associated Press, said the incoming government’s primary concern was the well-being of migrants while in Mexico.
Sanchez said the government did not intend for Mexico to become a “safe third country.”
The denial came hours after the Washington Post had quoted Sanchez saying that the plan had been agreed to as a “short-term solution.”
The program was meant to end the “catch and release” system denounced by Trump that allows migrants seeking refuge to live in the United States for years as they wait for an immigration judge to rule on their applications…..
image….Mario Tama.Getty
Pundits are running with the view that Trump has worked continuously to make the migrants/refugess the BIG BAD 2020 issue he’d like to use against the Democrats….
He ALREADY has put military units down at the border…
President Trump on Monday defended the use of tear gas against asylum seekers at the border, telling reporters that it was a “very minor form of tear gas” and questioning why migrants were trying to cross the border.
“First of all, the tear gas is a very minor form of the tear gas itself. It’s very safe,” Trump told reporters Monday evening in Mississippi.
“But you really say, why is a parent running up into an area where they know the tear gas is forming? And it’s going to be formed and they’re running up with a child,” he added….
More…
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton decried the use of tear gas against migrants attempting to cross the border illegally on Sunday.
“This is wrong,” Clinton wrote Monday in a tweet that linked to a story about the incident. It included a photo of a mother struggling to pull her children to safety….
More…