Thread by @JudicialWatch

BREAKING: The migrant caravan marching north thru Central America is an “elaborately planned” movement that’s benefiting human smugglers, violent gang members, & other criminal elements move via Guatemala, per government sources in the capital city. (1/13)
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“MS-13 gang members have been detained and coyotes (human smugglers) are joining the march with clients who pay to get smuggled into the United States,” a Guatemalan official told Judicial Watch. (2/13)
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A Guatemalan govt source said people from Asia waiting to get smuggled into the U.S. are integrating with Hondurans in the caravan, including nationals of Bangladesh (a South Asian Islamic country known as a recruiting ground for groups like ISIS). (3/13)
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In between Honduras & Mexico, Guatemala has been overrun with the onslaught of migrants that began their journey last week in the northern Honduran city of San Pedro Sula. ~7,000 have participated in the trek (many of them rowdy men ages 17 to 40). (4/13)
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Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales has ordered the military and police to detain all of the migrants and facilitate their safe return back to Honduras, though many thousands have already reached the Mexican border. (5/13)
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In an interview w/ JW at Guatemala’s Ministry of Defense, Defense Minister Luis Miguel Ralda Moreno stated 2,000+ Hondurans were sent back on buses, saying: “We’re doing everything possible to stop the caravan while still respecting human rights.” (6/13)
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In an interview w/ JW at Guatemala’s National Palace, President Morales said Guatemala absorbed costs of mobilizing police & military to return people to Honduras. He’d like U.S. to help find the caravan organizers so they face legal consequences. (7/13)
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Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales said: “Mass immigration like this endangers lives. This is unprecedented. We are in the process of investigating who is behind the caravan.” He said Guatemala is doing everything it can to curb illegal immigration. (8/13)
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Guatemalan officials say it’s been a delicate & complicated task because the caravan is very organized & well-orchestrated. There are rest points along the route with food, water, and shelter for the migrants as well as medical care in some areas. (9/13)
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According to one Guatemalan government source: “It’s very strategic and extremely organized. It is very complex, not a simple march. There is nothing spontaneous about it.” (10/13)
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Near the Guatemalan-Honduran border, JW interviewed migrants who repeated the rehearsed line re: the caravan, insisting it was just spontaneous even though there were organizers shouting instructions in Spanish & putting people in front of cameras. (11/13)
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All of the migrants JW interviewed said the caravan was not about politics but rather poverty. But Guatemalan officials disagree, estimating that the caravan is a movement of radicalized forces meant to destabilize Central American countries. (12/13)
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And in a news report last week, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández asserted that leftist interests seeking to destabilize the country are manipulating migrants and that women & children are being used without regard to risks to their lives. (13/13)
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