21 Dead Bodies Found in North Mexico Near Border Following Gang Clash, Say Officials

At least 21 dead bodies were found in northern Mexico after a gang clash, said officials on Jan. 10. Mexican authorities said the bodies were located in the northern Mexico border state of Tamaulipas, according to The Associated Press. The bodies were found in seven burned-out vehicles amid a clash between drug gangs on the border town of Miguel Aleman.

Miguel Aleman is located just a few miles from the U.S. border town where President Donald Trump will visit as he tries to bolster support for his plan to build a border wall. Trump is slated to visit McAllen, Texas, on the U.S.-Mexico border. According to video footage from Fox News, Air Force One landed at the McAllen-Miller International Airport in McAllen. There, Trump will partake in a meeting to discuss immigration and border security. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the killings appear to have been a “battle between two groups,” but he offered scant details on the incident, Reuters reported. Security officials are investigating and will provide more information later.

A Mexican security official told Reuters that authorities discovered the bodies on Wednesday, 17 of them burned, outside Ciudad Miguel Aleman, which is about 50 miles from McAllen, across the Rio Grande. Tamaulipas has become one of the most violent states in Mexico, a result of gangs fighting to control drug trafficking, extortion rackets, and the exploitation of migrants. The drug war left 28,689 people dead in Mexico in 2017, according to statistics from the Mexican government. That figure was the highest ever recorded in a year, AP noted. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in Mexico during years of fighting between security forces and warring drug cartels.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/21-dead-bodies-found-in-north-mexico-near-border-following-gang-clash-say-officials_2762695.html

Mexican Police Find Tunnel Used to Smuggle Drugs and Migrants Into US

American Border Patrol agents discovered a cross-border tunnel that started in the Mexican side of Nogales and entered the United States. The entry point was submerged underwater along an international waterway channel that was built below both cities of Nogales; the tunnel was adjacent to the Port of Nogales and came to a stop beneath a parking lot in Nogales, Arizona.

“At approximately 50 feet in length, the tunnel extended 44 feet into the United States and was two feet wide by two feet tall. Within the tunnel, agents discovered structural shoring and digging tools, which indicate excavation was still in progress and incomplete,” the agency stated. “Agents will continue to monitor and inspect the incomplete tunnel until it is properly secured and remediated with concrete filler.”

Border Patrol Agent Daniel Hernandez told the Arizona Republic that the agency has been working on taking a more proactive approach in recent years, working with officers in Mexico to conduct sweeps to explore underground areas to look for signs of tunnels before they’ve been completed. While three tunnels have now been found in Nogales recently, before then no tunnels had been discovered in about two years.

Another cross-border tunnel, complete with a rail system, electricity, ventilation, and lighting, was discovered in Jacumba, California, in October, several weeks after the opposite entrance was uncovered in Jacume, Mexico. The tunnel stretched 627 feet, including 336 feet in the United States, but did not have an exit point into America. “Agents reported that there was a solar panel system used to run the electrical, lighting, and ventilation systems that were in the tunnel. There were also two sump-pump systems within the tunnel to pump out any water that gathered in the tunnel,” the Border Patrol said.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mexican-police-find-tunnel-used-to-smuggle-drugs-and-migrants-into-us_2762733.html

Coast Guard Nabs Illegal Immigrants, Heroin Off Puerto Rico Coast

The Coast Guard intercepted a vessel with 35 people on board headed to Puerto Rico, the agency said on Jan. 10. The interdiction took place on Monday approximately 34 miles west of Desecheo. The people on board were all Dominican Republic nationals. The crew of Coast Guard Air Station Miami HC-144 Ocean Sentry detected the vessel and the Coast Guard Cutter Heriberto Hernandez was sent to intercept it. Coast Guardsmen also discovered a backpack with four kilograms (just shy of 9 pounds) of heroin floating near the vessel.

“While this interdiction is certainly a success of Coast Guard operational units through Operation Unified Resolve partnered with the Caribbean Border Interagency Group, it is also a symptom of a serious threat to our national security and maritime borders where narcotics smuggling is paired with illegal migrant ventures,” said Capt. Jason Ryan, chief of enforcement for the Coast Guard 7th District, in a statement. “Together with other DHS components and local law enforcement partners, we will continue to diligently patrol throughout the Caribbean Basin and Florida Straits to stem the flow of maritime smuggling and criminal organizations that bring violence to our shores and fuel the growing epidemic of drug use and overdoses throughout our country.”

On Jan. 10, 27 of the migrants were sent back to the Dominican Republic. The other eight were transferred into the custody of the Department of Justice’s District of Puerto Rico for further investigation and possible prosecution. One of the eight is a suspected smuggler who may have been involved in another smuggling operation in which several migrants died. The Coast Guard and its partners have made multiple interdictions in the Caribbean in the past few months.

A vessel with four migrants aboard was intercepted on Dec. 24, 2018, about 17 miles northeast of Samana, Dominican Republic. Crews found approximately 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of cocaine aboard. On. Nov. 10, a vessel with 20 migrants aboard was found just 3 miles northeast of Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. Coast Guard crews found approximately 248 milliliters (just over 8 ounces) of Fentanyl aboard.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/coast-guard-nabs-illegal-immigrants-heroin-off-puerto-rico-coast_2762795.html

Border Wall Would Pay for Itself: Study

An updated analysis from the Center for Immigration Studies found that President Donald Trump’s proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border would pay for itself, even after using conservative estimates of the cost of illegal immigrants and accounting for future flows. The director of the research, Dr. Steven Camarota, wrote that to pay for Trump’s requested $5.6 billion in funding for the wall must be able to prevent about “60,000 crossings or 3 to 4 percent of expected illegal crossers over the next decade.” Camarota’s analysis is the result of calculating the cost of each illegal immigrant and comparing it to the cost of the wall. On day 20 of the partial government shutdown, Democrats continue to refuse to back away from their original $1.3 billion offer for border-security purposes, which does not include any funding for a wall. “If we make much more conservative assumptions about both the cost of illegal immigrants and future flows, it still shows that a wall would have to stop or deter only a modest percentage of illegal crossings to pay for itself,” he wrote.

The average lifetime net fiscal cost per illegal crosser was $82,191 by education level, according to a prior analysis based on data from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS). The center’s estimate only includes original illegal immigrants and does not take into account their children and grandchildren. If the cost of descendants is factored in, the net fiscal drain per illegal crosser would be $103,826. “This estimate means that for every 100,000 illegal immigrants prevented from crossing illegally, it would save taxpayers $8.2 billion over the illegal immigrants’ lifetimes,” the report said.

Numbers from the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) indicate that for every successful illegal crossing there are 1.95 to 2.28 apprehensions, translating to about 170,000 to 200,000 successful illegal crossings in 2018. If this level continues, about 1.7 million to two million illegal immigrants would cross over in the next 10 years. “If the number of illegal crossing in 2018 was to continue for the next 10 years, the lifetime net fiscal drain from the 1.7 to two million new illegal immigrants would be $140 billion to $164 billion.” In December, Trump said the total cost of the wall could be around $15 billion to $20 billion. That number is less than the $25 billion GOP senators introduced in legislation to Congress.

Currently, around 654 miles of barrier exists along the near-2,000 miles of U.S.–Mexico border. Customs and Border Protection constructed around 31 miles of new and replacement fencing in 2018, with the final nine miles expected to be complete early this year, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Camarota also said that a large portion of the net fiscal cost of illegal immigrants is at the state and local level, while the wall funding is at the federal level. He added that even if the center’s estimates of the 2018 cost per illegal crosser and future flows were halved, the wall would only have to “stop or deter 12 to 14 percent of expected illegal border-crossers in the next decade” in order for the costs to be covered.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/border-wall-would-pay-for-itself-study_2762550.html