Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
A recent “USA Today” article by Rebecca Morin contains a wealth of information on intelligence gathering and analysis as it pertains to the U.S. border.
Morin points out that, “The administration was caught flatfooted by roughly 15,000 Haitian migrants who camped out last month under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas.”
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told the paper Del Rio was “most certainly a challenge that we had not encountered previously.” Mayorkas also said, “We have developed plans that should something like that occur again, we’re ready for it.”
While the secretary provided no details of the plans, he did reveal they included establishing drone coverage of migrant camps and trucks and increasing communications between the U.S. intelligence community and law enforcement agencies in other countries.
This information causes me to ask several questions.
How is it possible that 15,000 Haitians left an island, arrived in Mexico or Central America and sprung in full bloom at Del Rio, Texas, without one of the more than 15 alphabet soup U.S. intelligence agencies knowing about it? How is it possible that the secretary of Homeland Security was unaware that migrant caravans had arrived at our border before?
Maybe we should scrap the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on intelligence agencies and just call Dog, the Bounty Hunter. Dog finds people who have jumped bail and are trying not to be found; he could undoubtedly find 15,000 Haitian migrants, just by watching television.
As to Mayorkas’ wondering whether or not this scenario will occur again, no need to call Dog, it will happen again. There is probably a migrant caravan forming up as we speak. Bet on it.
But the truly amazing part of the story comes from former DHS Press Secretary David Lapan. According to USA Today, Lapan said that intelligence gathering and analysis could help DHS better combat disinformation that cartels and smugglers tell migrants to get them to make the trip.
“If you can find out through intelligence means that smugglers, cartels are telling people a very specific thing that’s untrue, then you can counter that directly.”
The problem is the smugglers aren’t lying. They’re telling migrants that if you make it to Del Rio, the U.S. government will put you on a plane at 2 a.m. and fly you into the U.S., to a city, not necessarily of your choice, but you’ll be in. When questioned about the middle-of-the-night migrant flights, Presidential Press Secretary Jen Psaki said 2 a.m. wasn’t really the middle of the night.
This whole thing puts me in mind of the Trace Adkins country song, “Hell, I Can Do That.”
Rube Render is a former Clovis city commissioner and former chair of the Curry County Republican Party. Contact him:
