Large Migrant Caravan Heads to U.S. ahead of Presidential Election
After four years under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, a number of U.S. Border Patrol agents have threatened to quit if Harris is elected as president this November. This comes after tens of millions of illegal immigrants have crossed the border, causing an influx in crime, terror threats, sex trafficking, drug smuggling, and more. While the agents are fearing an election in Harris’s favor, illegal immigrants are publicly announcing their fear of Republican nominee Donald Trump winning.
The migrants are concerned, should Trump be elected, that he will strengthen border policies, making it harder for illegal crossings. To get ahead of that, roughly 2,000 hopped on a caravan headed straight to America on Sunday. The convoy of men, women, and children, which left from Tapachula, Mexico earlier this month, has made its way across Latin America — including people from Venezuela, Haiti, Honduras, and Africa.
“In the last two years,” the New York Post wrote, approximately “1.3 million migrants have made it into the U.S. using the likes of Biden’s CBP One app and other legal avenues under the Biden-Harris administration” that have made it easier for immigrants to apply for asylum and enter the country. However, this hasn’t stopped millions from still sneaking into the U.S. illegally. The outlet added that “Sunday’s caravan is just the latest to start its way across Mexico in recent weeks, but also the largest in recent days.”
Earlier this month, two other caravans left Mexico, one carrying roughly 600 to 800 migrants, another carrying about 1,000. As such, among the three caravans is a total of almost 4,000 immigrants. Border Report noted an estimate of an additional 40,000 migrants that are still in southern Mexico.
Former President Donald Trump has made it clear that closing the border is his “first priority” if he wins the election. As part of that promise, he has said he will deport millions of illegal immigrants who have entered the U.S. “We have no choice,” Trump stated in a July interview. “[W]e have to get the criminals out. These are murderers. These are drug dealers. These are people that will take women and put them in the trunk of a car and sell them to the highest bidder.”
On the other hand, Harris, who has been in office for the nearly four years since the border crisis escalated to its current standing, has only offered vague policies to address the issue if she were elected as president. In September, she gave a speech in Arizona where she said, “Those who cross our borders unlawfully will be apprehended and removed and barred from re-entering for five years.” As the official Democratic presidential nominee, Harris took a trip to the border where she claimed she would “do more to secure our border, to reduce illegal border crossings” and “will take further action to keep the border closed between ports of entry.”
Illegal immigration has consistently polled as one of the top issues for voters this election season, and yet, many do not know how to respond to the current events. However, in a comment to The Washington Stand, David Closson, director of Family Research Council’s Center for Biblical Worldview, offered some ways to analyze the ongoing border crisis.
“The old adage that elections have consequences is proven correct every four years,” he said. Regarding the caravans that are bringing thousands of immigrants to America, Closson emphasized how “it is noteworthy that thousands of immigrants perceive that a Trump victory on November 5th will represent a return to policies that were more restrictive when it comes to immigration.” He continued, “The optics of large caravans headed north to our southern border is the precise image that the Harris-Walz campaign does not want to see, [even though] it is true that the Biden-Harris administration has been more lax on immigration than the Trump administration.”
“It’s not surprising that people fleeing from desperate situations would perceive Trump’s win as a narrowing window through which they could enter the country without being turned away,” Closson observed. He went on to highlight the importance of Christians to understand what the Bible has to say on matters such as immigration. He referred to Romans 13 and Titus 3 to explain how Scripture teaches that “a Christian framework for government understands that the state exists to punish wrongdoing and promote good. A fundamental task of government is to provide for the common welfare, which includes protecting its citizens.”
According to Closson, this biblical framework should help Christians see that citizens are not being protected, because “the broken border represents an increasing threat to the health and safety of Americans that has led to all sorts of human suffering. Christians should rightly be concerned about a porous southern border that is exploited by the enemies of the United States.” However, Closson insisted, “In the same breath, Christians understand that all people are made in God’s image.”
He continued, “This is one of the reasons why Christians don’t use dehumanizing rhetoric to refer to people who are legitimately trying to pursue a better life. We also need to recognize that the United States can’t grant asylum to everyone in the world who wants to come to this country.”
Closson concluded that “Christians are the people that can say two things: One, all people have dignity and value and should be respected. But two, we need to be the people that are really careful about what immigration policies we support, because we recognize that national sovereignty, as well as the health and safety of our citizens, is at stake.”
Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.