The vanguard of the Caravan is already in Mexico City, more than halfway to the border

[Tom Sawyer]

So... the fact that the migrants are now getting sick means we should be even LESS concerned about their well being?

That they are carrying serious diseases like tuberculosis means we should not just be letting them in.

Ya, that is actually a really good reason to keep someone out of your country. Nobody with an deadly contagious disease should be allowed to cross a border.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Cracks starting to show;

Hundreds of migrants begin to 'self-deport' back to Central America as TB, chicken pox and lice become endemic. Tijuana's Health Department revealed on Thursday that there are cases of migrants suffering from tuberculosis, chickenpox, skin infections, and there is now a risk of an hepatitis outbreak due to the squalid conditions. So far, there have been three confirmed cases of tuberculosis, four of chickenpox, and four cases of HIV/AIDS.

But with Trump's continuing tough rhetoric and US immigration 'metering' the number of asylum applications to between 40 and 80 cases per day, the reality of having to spend weeks or even months camped out on blankets and rags in a fetid limbo is hitting home. Mexican officials revealed that around 200 migrants volunteered this week for repatriation, with more than a hundred having already flown home from Tijuana's airport Monday. A further 98 were forcibly removed after Sunday's violent clashes at the border

DailyMail

The activists that encouraged this "caravan" ought to be ashamed of themselves.

The activists should be blamed for Trump's slow-walking the applications for asylum??

 

[skepticalbip]

Cracks starting to show;

Hundreds of migrants begin to 'self-deport' back to Central America as TB, chicken pox and lice become endemic. Tijuana's Health Department revealed on Thursday that there are cases of migrants suffering from tuberculosis, chickenpox, skin infections, and there is now a risk of an hepatitis outbreak due to the squalid conditions. So far, there have been three confirmed cases of tuberculosis, four of chickenpox, and four cases of HIV/AIDS.

But with Trump's continuing tough rhetoric and US immigration 'metering' the number of asylum applications to between 40 and 80 cases per day, the reality of having to spend weeks or even months camped out on blankets and rags in a fetid limbo is hitting home. Mexican officials revealed that around 200 migrants volunteered this week for repatriation, with more than a hundred having already flown home from Tijuana's airport Monday. A further 98 were forcibly removed after Sunday's violent clashes at the border

DailyMail

The activists that encouraged this "caravan" ought to be ashamed of themselves.

The activists should be blamed for Trump's slow-walking the applications for asylum??

It is political theater on both sides. The caravan was intended to overwhelm our admission system apparently with the intent of making the American public sympathetic to their 'plight' and demand letting them in without screening. And they did overwhelm the system - intentionally. The administration insists on not allowing them in without screening so is making them wait while they go through the normal screening process.

The organizers want open borders. The administration wants controlled borders. The question is whether the public sympathy will win or if this mass moving on the border will strengthen public resolve to protect the borders.

Either way, it is those who were told by the organizers of the caravan that they could easily get into the U.S. that are suffering (Lenin would call them useful idiots). Meanwhile there are more caravans being organized.

 

[Derec]

Now some caravaners want to force US to let them in by engaging in a hunger strike.
Caravan women launch hunger strike, putting pressure on U.S. and Mexico
Hunger striker have always struck me as extortion. But very stupid extortion, where you threaten harm to yourself.

 

[untermensche]

So... the fact that the migrants are now getting sick means we should be even LESS concerned about their well being?

That they are carrying serious diseases like tuberculosis means we should not just be letting them in.

By the way they already caught a MS-13 banger who was part of the caravan.
Border Patrol Arrests MS-13 Member Who Traveled with Caravan

So you and Donnie have made a diagnosis of tuberculosis through telepathy?

Stupidity!

 

[PyramidHead]

So... the fact that the migrants are now getting sick means we should be even LESS concerned about their well being?

That they are carrying serious diseases like tuberculosis means we should not just be letting them in.

By the way they already caught a MS-13 banger who was part of the caravan.
Border Patrol Arrests MS-13 Member Who Traveled with Caravan

So you and Donnie have made a diagnosis of tuberculosis through telepathy?

Stupidity!

Either way, TB is treatable and curable and we have plenty of medicine... I'm still not seeing why I should be ashamed about helping migrants. I'm also not really interested in what the National Review has to say about it, nor the Daily Mail. We're kind of setting the bar pretty low as a species if we can't exercise basic human decency and compassion anymore.

 

[Elixir]

Hunger striker have always struck me as extortion. But very stupid extortion, where you threaten harm to yourself.

Kinda like Donnie threatening to shut down the government?

 

[TSwizzle]

The estimated 5,000 impoverished Central Americans now pressed against our southern border have triggered a U.S. military deployment, strain on Tijuana’s social services, and heated immigration debate. But unfortunately, almost no one is talking about climate change, a root cause of the migration.

TheHill

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

So... the fact that the migrants are now getting sick means we should be even LESS concerned about their well being?

That they are carrying serious diseases like tuberculosis means we should not just be letting them in.

No one ever just lets anyone in.

By the way they already caught a MS-13 banger who was part of the caravan.
Border Patrol Arrests MS-13 Member Who Traveled with Caravan

From your "source" (the notoriously right wing propaganda magazine, National Review):

During questioning at the El Centro station, the Honduran citizen confessed that he is an active member of MS-13 and had intended to enter the country illegally after traveling to the U.S. with the caravan of thousands of other migrants.

Wow. That's remarkable that he would just confess like that. All because he was questioned, no less? Those MS-13 types are SO bad ass to stand up to a good questioning like that. And so convenient, too, for Trump that there would be one such member. Hey, maybe that means THEY ARE ALL MS-13!

I hope for their sake that no one asks them that question, as they would evidently be powerless.

Regardless, what you've just provided us is evidence that the normal process--that has been in place for decades--is, once again, working.

So...thanks?

ETA: I forgot, since not ONE GODDAMNED THING about any of this effects you--or any other American--in any significant way, why again are you spouting such stupidity? No jobs are at stake; no increase in your taxes (other than to pay for the dumbshow Trump is putting on, of course); no undue threat to you or your family or friends or fellow 'Muricans; not one goddamned thing, except numerous net benefits, such as jobs no one else will do being filled and the 23 billion in income taxes they pay every year, not to mention billions in other forms of state and local taxes:

The best estimates come from research by the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy, a Washington, DC, think tank, which suggests that about half of undocumented workers in the United States file income tax returns. The most recent IRS data, from 2015, shows that the agency received 4.4 million income tax returns from workers who don’t have Social Security numbers, which includes a large number of undocumented immigrants. That year, they paid $23.6 billion in income taxes.
...
Still, all undocumented workers fund public schools and local government services by paying sales and property taxes like everyone else. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates that they pay about $11.7 billion a year in state and local taxes.

And workers who get a paycheck, like Maria, still have payroll taxes for Medicare and Social Security withheld from their paycheck, even if they put a fake Social Security number on their W-2 form. The IRS estimates that unauthorized workers pay about $9 billion in payroll taxes annually.

So that's a total of $44 Billion every year from undocumented immigrants that doesn't benefit any of them. Just us.

Aren't YOU on Medicare? That means that, right now, YOU would be benefiting from undocumented immigrants, you ungrateful pos.

There are ZERO detriments and DOZENS of benefits, so the only reason that I can see to any of this trumped up bullshit is miscegenation.

 

[PyramidHead]

"There are such things in the world as human rights. They rest upon no conventional foundation, but are external, universal, and indestructible. Among these, is the right of locomotion; the right of migration; the right which belongs to no particular race, but belongs alike to all and to all alike. It is the right you assert by staying here, and your fathers asserted by coming here. It is this great right that I assert for the Chinese and Japanese, and for all other varieties of men equally with yourselves, now and forever. I know of no rights of race superior to the rights of humanity, and when there is a supposed conflict between human and national rights, it is safe to go to the side of humanity."

-Frederick Douglass

 

[TSwizzle]

WASHINGTON – A convicted murderer from Honduras was arrested after illegally entering the U.S. with members of the migrant caravan, Department of Homeland Security officials said Friday. The arrest Nov. 24 came the same day that an alleged member of the MS-13 crime gang from Honduras was arrested for entering the U.S. illegally, officials said. “As DHS confirmed weeks ago, there are at least 600 known criminals in the caravan flow,” said Tyler Houlton, a department spokesman. “The fact that Border Patrol arrested a murderer within the first caravan-related apprehensions at our southern border proves how real the threat of the caravan is to our national security and public safety.”

USAToDay

I expect more are on the way thanks to the organizers of this fiasco, making things even more difficult for the genuine cases. But that doesn't matter because it's all about Trump. Shameful.

 

[PyramidHead]

WASHINGTON – A convicted murderer from Honduras was arrested after illegally entering the U.S. with members of the migrant caravan, Department of Homeland Security officials said Friday. The arrest Nov. 24 came the same day that an alleged member of the MS-13 crime gang from Honduras was arrested for entering the U.S. illegally, officials said. “As DHS confirmed weeks ago, there are at least 600 known criminals in the caravan flow,” said Tyler Houlton, a department spokesman. “The fact that Border Patrol arrested a murderer within the first caravan-related apprehensions at our southern border proves how real the threat of the caravan is to our national security and public safety.”

USAToDay

I expect more are on the way thanks to the organizers of this fiasco, making things even more difficult for the genuine cases. But that doesn't matter because it's all about Trump. Shameful.

In any humanitarian crisis, there will always be exploiters who try to take advantage of the opportunity. Whether you are the possessor of a conscience or a selfish asshole comes down to how you prioritize the following two activities:

1. Preventing every last freeloader from gaming the system
2. Helping the people who need help most urgently

I'll let you figure out which order corresponds to which category. In the meantime, also recognize that this applies to any public policy (health care, education, affirmative action, criminal justice, and welfare services to name a few more examples).

 

[TSwizzle]

In any humanitarian crisis, there will always be exploiters who try to take advantage of the opportunity. {snip}

This is a manufactured "humanitarian crisis" (I doubt it is even a crisis) and the people taking advantage of it are on the US side of the border.

Shameful.

 

[Elixir]

One convicted murderer, one alleged MS-13 member, both caught.
What percentage of all those processed does that represent?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The activists should be blamed for Trump's slow-walking the applications for asylum??

It is political theater on both sides. The caravan was intended to overwhelm our admission system apparently with the intent of making the American public sympathetic to their 'plight' and demand letting them in without screening. And they did overwhelm the system - intentionally. The administration insists on not allowing them in without screening so is making them wait while they go through the normal screening process.

The organizers want open borders. The administration wants controlled borders. The question is whether the public sympathy will win or if this mass moving on the border will strengthen public resolve to protect the borders.

Either way, it is those who were told by the organizers of the caravan that they could easily get into the U.S. that are suffering (Lenin would call them useful idiots). Meanwhile there are more caravans being organized.

There is a difference between screening and slow-walking. His Flatulence is doing the latter. The screening could have been speeded up by bringing in more people.

- - - Updated - - -

So you and Donnie have made a diagnosis of tuberculosis through telepathy?

Stupidity!

Either way, TB is treatable and curable and we have plenty of medicine... I'm still not seeing why I should be ashamed about helping migrants. I'm also not really interested in what the National Review has to say about it, nor the Daily Mail. We're kind of setting the bar pretty low as a species if we can't exercise basic human decency and compassion anymore.

Not all TB is treatable.

 

[skepticalbip]

There is a difference between screening and slow-walking. His Flatulence is doing the latter. The screening could have been speeded up by bringing in more people.

As I said, it is political theater on both sides.

The organizers of the caravan want to change U.S. border policy so they mobbed the border to overwhelm the system in an attempt to gain public sympathy for open borders.

The administration is demonstrating that outsiders don't control our border policy.

Those in the caravan are being used as 'useful idiots" by both sides, only pawns in the theater. They are not the point of the political theater for either side. The organizers got exactly what they wanted, a mob of sympathetic individuals for the media to focus on to generate a cry for open borders. The Administration got what they want, a mob of aliens rushing the border to emphasize the need for a border wall.

 

[Elixir]

The organizers want open borders.

Have you seen any interviews with "the organizers"? Do "the organizers" even exist?

There is a difference between screening and slow-walking. His Flatulence is doing the latter. The screening could have been speeded up by bringing in more people.

Very true. If they spent the $220,000,000.00 that they wasted on illegally bringing the military to the border - if they had spent it on asylum judges and hearing rooms, they could have cleared the entire backlog by now. But that would defeat the purpose, wouldn't it? No more caravan, no more "NATIONAL EMERGENCY!!!!"

 

[skepticalbip]

The organizers want open borders.

Have you seen any interviews with "the organizers"? Do "the organizers" even exist?

I have seen interviews with SOME of the organizers. One on the major groups of organizers on the ground dealing with day to day logistics is Pueblo Sin Fronteras.

 

[Elixir]

The organizers want open borders.

Have you seen any interviews with "the organizers"? Do "the organizers" even exist?

I have seen interviews with SOME of the organizers. One on the major groups of organizers on the ground dealing with day to day logistics is Pueblo Sin Fronteras.

Thanks!
They don't look particularly sinister to me, though.

 

[skepticalbip]

I have seen interviews with SOME of the organizers. One on the major groups of organizers on the ground dealing with day to day logistics is Pueblo Sin Fronteras.

Thanks!
They don't look particularly sinister to me, though.

I never claimed they were sinister. They are an ideologically driven movement whose goal is the elimination of national borders, as their name implies.