As President Trump grapples with a nearly 7,000-individual caravan traveling through Mexico and heading for the southern border, another caravan is forming in El Salvador.
Department of Homeland Security officials have confirmed the forming caravan, which includes a 230-member WhatsApp group, intends to head for the United States on October 31st.
Experts report that the new group of potential illegal immigrants was likely inspired by the Honduran caravan. Vice President Mike Pence stated that the Honduran President said the caravan is funded by leftists and socialist Venezuela.
The DHS indicates the El Salvadoran group consists mostly of migrant families and their children, though just as the Honduran group swelled to an uncontrollable mass of people, the makeup of individuals could drastically change.
EXCLUSIVE: El Salvadorian caravan taking shape, due to start traveling north next week. w/ @marianaatencio . https://t.co/46gMcd26QA
— Julia E. Ainsley (@JuliaEAinsley) October 23, 2018
El Salvador and MS-13
A caravan from El Salvador would be of particular concern for the safety of the United States because it serves as a breeding ground of violent MS-13 gang activity.
A year-long operation in August yielded an arrest of over 600 members from the notoriously violent gang within the country.
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President Trump has had a keen eye on the group, referring to MS-13 as a group of animals and inviting victims of their deadly violence to his State of the Union address.
“This is one of the most vicious and deadly gangs that operates by the motto of rape, control and kill,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders explained.
Q: “What did the president mean when he said that some immigrants are non-people, they’re animals?”
.@PressSec Sarah Sanders: “The president was very clearly referring to MS-13 gang members…” She also says, “Frankly, I think that the term ‘animal’ doesn’t go far enough.” pic.twitter.com/Icdt50eIsU
— CSPAN (@cspan) May 17, 2018
Would it be a stretch of the imagination to think that members of the MS-13 gang, recently targeted in a government crackdown in El Salvador, might try to escape by infiltrating the new caravan? Especially if that caravan mimics the other and swells by the thousands before they reach America?
Trump vows to cut aid to El Salvador
In the wake of these forming mobs of illegal immigrants trekking through Guatemala and Mexico, violently storming border gates and promising to breach the U.S. border, President Trump has vowed to fight back.
Aside from threatening a military response to protect the border, the President has also promised to cut aid to countries that fail to stop the group’s progress.
“Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador were not able to do the job of stopping people from leaving their country and coming illegally to the U.S.,” Trump explained. “We will now begin cutting off, or substantially reducing, the massive foreign aid routinely given to them.”
I am watching the Democrat Party led (because they want Open Borders and existing weak laws) assault on our country by Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, whose leaders are doing little to stop this large flow of people, INCLUDING MANY CRIMINALS, from entering Mexico to U.S…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 18, 2018
….In addition to stopping all payments to these countries, which seem to have almost no control over their population, I must, in the strongest of terms, ask Mexico to stop this onslaught – and if unable to do so I will call up the U.S. Military and CLOSE OUR SOUTHERN BORDER!..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 18, 2018
A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security had reported that the agency “can confirm that there are individuals within the (Honduran) caravan who are gang members or have significant criminal histories.”