Border Patrol updates county on potential migrant influx
EL CENTRO — Ahead of the now-splintering migrant caravan making its way toward the United States, Border Patrol officials went before the Imperial County Board of Supervisors to briefly update the county on preparations for any potential influx of migrants locally.
A lot of uncertainty was at the crux of the presentation as it’s not clear yet where the caravans will go. Taking the shortest route would get the Central American caravans to Reynosa, Mexico/McAllen, Texas, and the longest route would be to Tijuana/ San Ysidro, outside San Diego. Officials believe the route to the latter destination would take the caravans through Mexicali/ Calexico.
Border Patrol officials here, including El Centro Sector Chief Patrol Agent Gloria I. Chavez and Assistant Chief Patrol Agent David Kim, talked about a “tiered approach” to dealing with the migrant caravans, although they did not elaborate on what exactly that meant.
“The specifics of our tiered approach involve certain law enforcement sensitive items that we are not going to release publically at this time,” Kim wrote in an email response to further questions posed by the Imperial Valley Press following the county presentation.
Instead, at the Board of Supervisors meeting, Chavez talked of her three priorities to dealing with the caravan — one, “impedance and denial capabilities,” which include fortifying the border fence; two, “persistent surveillance,” which would require the assistance of Department of Defense troops; and three, “detention, and transportation of people we detain.”
There was no follow-up questioning from the Board of Supervisors on those points and, again, little if any elaboration from Chavez. Kim did not elaborate in his email to the newspaper.
Kim at one point in the meeting said his priority first and foremost was ensuring that it is business as usual at the border in the event that the migrant caravans make their way to Mexicali. He was referring to the flow of travelers through the ports of entry and the maintaining of Calexico’s border economy.
“Trade, travel and commerce are vitally important to the interests and prosperity of the United States. Any irregular occurrences that may happen to disrupt that, are what concerns CBP here in the Imperial Valley,” Kim elaborated in his email response.
Chavez also spoke of “trigger points,” or places where the migrants may reach that would trigger different parts of the preparation for the caravans’ arrival. She said those trigger points are in the state of Sonora, Mexico, including Puerto Peñasco, and the final being Mexicali.
Again, there was no elaboration on what it would mean for preparations to hit to those trigger points.
During the presentation to the county, Kim said Border Patrol is looking at three “big groups” of migrants, adding, “We’re not sure how they are going to approach the ports of entry; with a calm and rationale approach, or what we’ve seen at the [southern] Mexican border,” where some violent confrontations with border guard have occurred.
Chavez said Customs and Border Protection has about 1,100 personnel in Imperial County, 800 of which are Border Patrol agents.
Chavez added she had been in contact with the consulates of the Central American countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, all of which are outside Imperial County. She asked that they consider setting up temporary satellite offices locally to address the migrants.
“We don’t want them [the migrants] long term,” she said.
Little was discussed on the deployment of troops to the region. Briefly, Chavez made the statement of requesting helicopter support with aircraft capable of carrying 30 to 50 Border Patrol personnel in the event the caravans rushed the border.
Kim stated in his email, “Also at this time I have no information on troop deployments yet. As we receive more updates and information on troop deployments we’ll put out whatever information we get and are authorized to.”
Last week it was reported that Naval Air Facility El Centro will be among six Southern California military bases that would serve as logistical and support hubs for the U.S. military troops working under Operation Faithful Patriot, the Department of Defense initiative to aid Southwest border enforcement. Although Donald Trump has tweeted that as many and 15,000 troops could be called up, officially DOD has said the operation would involve 7,000.
The Associated Press reported in the last few days that 3,500 troops are already stationed at support bases in California, Arizona and Texas awaiting further orders.
As for the migrant caravans, Chavez said some 3,000 to 5,000 migrants have reached Mexico City. They are being housed in a sports stadium there, and social services agencies are on site.
By Monday afternoon, 2,000 or more had arrived at the Jesus Martinez stadium, which has a capacity of about three times that, and eagerly began sifting through donations of clothes, gave themselves sponge baths, lunched on chicken and rice under the shade of tents and picked up thin mattresses to hunker down for the night, according to the Associated Press.
The inflow of migrants continued into the night, and four large tents set up for sleeping had filled. Much in demand were blankets to ward off the chill, a big change after trudging for three weeks in tropical heat, AP reported.
Many people went to medical tents to get treatment for blistered and aching feet, illness and other maladies. “Since we got here, we have not stopped,” Tania Escobar, a nurse with Mexico City’s public health department, told AP.