PrairiePundit

 Washington Examiner: Hundreds of Honduran and Nicaraguan migrants were prevented from crossing through Guatemala by Guatemalan security forces while traveling as a caravan intended to approach and cross the U.S. southern border. A group of 300 migrants crossed into the Guatemalan province of Izabal on Saturday, where anti-riot agents from the national police and army stopped them. Local officials are attempting to encourage migrants to return to their home countries. "People are being returned, everything in order, humanely," Guatemalan Migration Institute director Carlos Emilio Morales told Voice of America . "We are protecting our borders; we are protecting the health of all Guatemalans." Those who want to remain in Guatemala have been asked to provide identification documents, vaccination cards, and a negative coronavirus test. The caravan left Honduras days before liberal politician Xiomara Castro was sworn in on Jan. 27, reported Reuters . The migrants be...

 Red States: ... Further, her early June “Northern Triangle” trip was an  utter disaster , especially after Guatemala’s President Alejandro Giammattei did an interview during Harris’s trip to his country and point-blank  blamed  the Biden-Harris administration for the border surge. Unfortunately for the Biden administration – Kamala Harris specifically – Giammattei is speaking out again on diplomatic relations between the two countries. And what he said just blew the White House’s “root causes” narrative right out of the water: Reporter: “Other than your meeting with Kamala Harris in June?” Guatemala's President: “That’s the only one” Reporter: “That is the only communication you’ve had with the Biden Administration about illegal immigration?” Guatemala's President: “Yep”  pic.twitter.com/Ckr0KafNaE — The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial)  December 8, 2021 Fox News national correspondent Bill Melugin, who has been reporting live from the border for months ...

 Washington Examiner: The federal agency responsible for inspecting incoming international mail is concerned people sneaking across the  border  are mailing themselves identifying documents from abroad, which would allow them to apply for driver's licenses and other benefits in the United States. Last week, international mail inspectors with U.S. Customs and Border Protection in St. Louis seized four shipments from Guatemala and Mexico that contained two Mexican passports, two birth certificates, three identity certificates, and several vehicle registration cards. While fake identification documents are regularly seized in the mail, these were valid government documents, and the passports belonged to two Mexican citizens. Neither of the two Mexicans obtained permission from the U.S. government to be in the country, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection explained. “With it being in St. Louis, it’s kind of an oddity,” said Steve Bansbach, spokesman for CBP’s Mi...

 NY Post: Vice President Kamala Harris was greeted Monday by protesters in Guatemala telling her “Trump won” and “go home” — as the country’s president blamed President Biden for this year’s migrant crisis. The rally was visible to Harris’ motorcade as she arrived to meet with Guatemala President Alejandro Giammattei one day after he blamed the US for luring his constituents north. “Kamala, Trump won,” read a large sign near the Central American country’s presidential palace. “Kamala, Mind Your Own Business,” another sign said, according to a pool report. Images posted to Twitter show other signs, including one that tells Biden’s migration czar: “Kamala, Go Home.” Another large sign set up by activists features a doctored photo of a pregnant Harris. The poster read, “Guatemala is pro-life #momalahelpme.” Harris does not have biological children. Another sign that appears to have been hoisted by activists onto a tall billboard along the roadway says, “Kamala Stop Funding Criminals ...

 Andrea Widburg: One of the unsung wonders of the Trump administration is the congenial relationships he developed with nations around the world. It’s not a coincidence that he did not start any new wars even as he never gave an inch when it came to American honor, integrity, and money. Things are going to be different with Biden, though. Even before being inaugurated, Biden had managed to put the U.S. at odds with Canada, Mexico, and Guatemala. Despite Biden coming from the same hard-left side of the political spectrum as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the Canadians are already mad at Old Joe. The source of the anger is Biden’s commitment to destroying America’s economy and turning America back to a premodern time in fealty to the climate changistas. To that end, Biden announced that he was shutting down the Keystone Oil Pipeline.... ... Even the  New York Times  has had to admit that Mexico’s socialist president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (“AMLO”), is  w...

 Reuters: The Guatemalan military has detained hundreds of migrants at its border as thousands of Hondurans, including many families with young children, continued to walk north on Friday as part of a caravan hoping to reach the United States. The Guatemalan military detained 600 migrants at the border crossing point in Corinto and transferred them to immigration authorities on Friday, according to military spokesman Ruben Tellez. Separately, Guatemalan authorities returned 102 Honduran migrants back to Honduras on Thursday, after the first groups in the caravan set off from San Pedro Sula. The Red Cross estimates that up to 4,000 people could join the caravan, as Honduras reels from violence and an economy shattered by hurricanes and coronavirus lockdowns. "We're suffering from hunger," Oscar Garcia told Reuters as he made his way toward the Guatemala border. The banana plantation worker said his home was destroyed in November's hurricanes, and that he's fleeing ...

Washington Post: U.S.-bound migrants clash with Mexican forces at Guatemala border The caravan presented a new test for the Mexican government, which promised the Trump administration last year that it would step up enforcement. When Trump said he would build a wall and that Mexico would pay for it, this was not what many envisioned but the effect is pretty much the same.  Democrats may be upset because they see these migrants as a way to replace their shrinking base in this country.  They are looking for a growing dependency class that will be locked into voting for them to survive.  They also use illegals as a means to steal House seats by counting them in the census.  They want to use them to gain power. The Trump administration does not oppose legal immigration.  It wants to bring in the best and brightest from around the world to build a stronger US rather than building an underclass for Democrat exploitation.

Breitbart: Mexican authorities arrested two Hondurans who allegedly shot at federal police officers escorting the migrant caravan across the southern state of Chiapas. The attack follows shortly after government warnings about Molotov cocktail attacks around a second caravan near the border with Guatemala. The attack took place near Ignacio Zaragoza, Chiapas, when members of Mexico’s Federal Police were escorting the migrant caravan as part of “Operativo Caminante” or “Operation Walker” across the southern border state. According to Mexico’s Interior Secretariat , two men identified only as 22-year-old “Jerson” and 17-year-old “Carlos” spotted the group of police officers guarding the caravan and began firing at them. The attackers’ pistol jammed, allowing police officers to arrest them without any injuries. Federal authorities seized a .380 caliber Glock with nine rounds still in the magazine. ... Fortunately, there were no casualties but the migrants are showing a willingness to e...

Power Line: Let’s start by identifying what’s not driving it. The surge in immigration from Central America to the United States is not caused by violence in the countries the migrants are leaving. As Matt Sussis points out in the video below, since 2011 the murder rate has declined significantly in Guatemala and Honduras. It has declined significantly in El Salvador since 2015. Some on the left claim that climate change is responsible for the waves of immigration. Supposedly, it has led to lower crop production, thereby threatening the livelihoods of agricultural workers in Central America. File this claim under “climate change, is there nothing it can’t do?” Sussis observes that, since 2000 crop yields have risen significantly in all three of the countries mentioned above. Thus, as with violence, climate change does not explain the recent surge in migration. What does? The obvious motive for coming to the U.S. from Central America is the superior economic conditions in our ...

Telegraph: Thousands of migrants making their way towards the United States remain stuck on a river crossing between Guatemala and Mexico without food or water. The migrants, part of a caravan of around 4,000 people, have vowed to remain there until Mexican authorities grant them entry into the country despite conditions on the bridge worsening with a growing pile up of rubbish and no bathrooms. Tensions flared on the Suchiate river crossing late on Friday when the migrants attempted to force their way across the border and Mexican riot police threw tear gas at the crowd. Meanwhile, many Hondurans, mostly men, swam across the river and remain on the river bank on Saturday, on the Mexican side of the border, waiting for the rest of the caravan to cross. Around 200 people who did manage cross, mainly women and children, were taken to an immigration center, where their details were recorded. They were later transported to a convention center located in the city of Tapachula, ...

This BBC video captures the eruption of Fuego .

NY Times: Guatemala Will Move Its Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem The country was one of a few to vote with the United States against a U.N. resolution condemning President Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the American embassy. The opposition to moving embassies to Israel's seat of government has never made much sense on a historical basis.  It seems to be based on Muslim spite and its long-held desire to suppress the Jewish faith.  That is the reason they built their mosque on top of the site of a Jewish temple.  It is a tactic they have used elsewhere to suppress other faiths.  They have never forgiven the Jews for rejecting Islam.  What I find appalling is how many other nations go along with this religious bigotry. Good for Guatemala.  Other nations should join the US in rejecting bigotry against Israel.

Guardian: Four migrants die trying to cross Rio Grande, days after Texas truck deaths Three Guatemalans, including two children, and woman of unconfirmed nationality die in effort to reach Texas after torrential rain swelled river It is not clear why they chose to try to cross the river at El Paso which is hundreds of miles further than the mouth of the river from Central America.  I suspect they were misled by the Mexican cartel. The US needs to publicize the deaths in Central America to discourage the dangerous journey.

Mark  Moyar: The Trump administration’s new budget outline calls for a 28% cut in funding for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Defenders of USAID insist that foreign aid is vital to advancing U.S. interests. They’re right—but there’s also plenty of waste. On its website, USAID explains that the “Purple My School” program, a joint venture with the United Nations, “encourages peers, teachers and parents to become allies of LGBTI students” in eight Asian countries. “Through teachers’ facilitation, students discuss issues surrounding homophobia, how to create safe spaces for LGBTI students, and are encouraged to wear, draw, or make something purple.” (The acronym stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex.) To promote transgender rights in Central America, USAID has “helped Guatemala’s Election Tribunal update election manuals and provide trainings to electoral officials on how to be sensitive to people whose appearances are...

Miami Herald: Central American nations have reached a deal to let the first of thousands of stranded Cuban migrants continue their journey north toward the United States next month, officials said Monday. The humanitarian transfer will airlift an unspecified number of Cubans the first week of January from Costa Rica to El Salvador, from where they will continue by bus toward Mexico, Costa Rica's Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The Guatemalan government, which hosted a diplomatic meeting earlier in the day to consider the issue, described it as a "pilot" program and said a work group has been tasked with coordinating logistics. The two governments did not immediately release further details, citing some nations' desire for discretion on what has become a diplomatic flashpoint between Costa Rica and neighboring Nicaragua. The number of Cubans stranded in Costa Rica has reached at least 8,000 since Nicaragua closed its border to them weeks ago. The island...

IBD Editorial: It's easy to get lost in the weeds of Brazil's, Venezuela's, or other Latin countries' internal political strife. But there's a broad, unmistakable trend out there: The region's socialist rule is collapsing as the cash runs out. That's quite a change, given that in 2011, President Obama made Brazil the first stop on his first trip to Latin America, posing for glamorous pictures and hailing the country and its president, Dilma Rousseff, as the wave of the future. He came with Export-Import bank credits and a plea for America to become Brazil's "best customer" in its nascent oil industry. Today, the country is in shambles, a crony-looted, crime-infested, corruption-plagued mess that resembles its fellow BRIC, Boris Yeltsin's gangster-plagued Russia in the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. ... There is much more including the new government in Argentina and Guatemala.   Venezuela is on the brink of collap...

Washington Times: A House Republican task force Wednesday unveiled a $1.5 billion plan to ease the border crisis, including deploying the National Guard to help achieve “operational control” of the border and launching law enforcement operations in Central America and Mexico to stop illegal immigrants before they reach the U.S. Under the plan, the U.S. steps to accelerate immigration hearings for the unaccompanied alien children flooding across the Southern border, providing additional judges to hear requests for asylum. Tougher penalties on human traffickers, or coyotes, who smuggle the children to the United Sates would be imposed to discourage more mass illegal migration. Rep. Kay Granger , the Texas Republican who led the task force, called the proposed measures “common-sense, compassionate, but tough solutions.” “Our focus has been to ensure the safety of the children and it has remained a top priority throughout this process,” she said. “In our personal meetings with the Presi...

BBC: Mexico and Guatemala say they have rescued at least 104 people from captivity and arrested 14 of their alleged human traffickers. Police in Guatemala said they raided two houses near the Mexican border and found at least 60 people who wanted to travel to the United States illegally. They arrested eight alleged smugglers. In Mexico, the authorities said they found 44 Guatemalan migrants in a house near the Guatemalan border and arrested six alleged human traffickers. Migrants from Central America often pay smugglers to enter the US illegally, but are frequently abused by their traffickers. They can hold migrants in captivity to extort more money from the victims' relatives. ... It is a process that does not end at the border.  Many of these people are kept in Stash houses inside the US as more demands are made for money.  It has become a lucrative sideline for the Mexican drug cartels.  Obama's immigration policies have in effect encouraged this type of conduct by ...

BBC: The Mexican army says it has rescued 165 migrants kidnapped by a criminal gang at least two weeks ago. The migrants were trying to cross to the US illegally but were taken hostage in northern Tamaulipas state by a gang who demanded cash from relatives. Most of the victims were from Central American countries. The migrants were probably betrayed by human trafficking gangs who were paid to get them into the US, a Mexican government spokesperson said. Instead of taking the group across the border, they handed them over to another criminal organisation that operates in northern Mexico. The kidnappers had been phoning relatives of the victims and demanding further money transfers, said government spokesman Eduardo Sanchez. The operation took place on Tuesday, in the municipality of Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, but has only now been reported. The army was alerted to the presence of heavily armed men at a property in the area, said Mr Sanchez. When it stormed the property, it found 165 people, ...

AP/San Antonio Express News: Hardened in the streets and prisons of California and deported in the 1990s to the Central American countries where they were born, the members of the Mara Salvatrucha street gang swiftly grew into a force of heavily tattooed young men carrying out kidnappings, murder and extortion.   Now, Guatemalan authorities say, they have begun to see new and disturbing evidence of an alliance between the Maras and another of the most feared criminal organizations in Latin America — a deal with the potential to further undermine that U.S.-backed effort to fight violent crime and narcotics trafficking in the region.   Secret jailhouse recordings and a turncoat kidnapper have described a pact between leaders of the Maras and the Zetas, the brutal Mexican paramilitary drug cartel that has seized control of large parts of rural northern Guatemala in its campaign for mastery of drug-trafficking routes from South America to the United State...