From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   Migrants Are Flocking to the U.S. From All Over the Globe   
   By Santiago Pérez, Nov. 4, 2023, WSJ   
   Hundreds of thousands of migrants from all over the world are making their way   
   to the Southwest border, with U.S. and Mexican authorities reporting a surge   
   in apprehensions of people from Asia and Africa as human smuggling networks   
   widen their reach    
   across the globe.   
      
   Arrests at the Southwest border of migrants from China, India and other   
   distant countries, including Mauritania and Senegal, tripled to 214,000 during   
   the fiscal year that ended in September from 70,000 in the previous fiscal   
   year, according to U.S.    
   Customs and Border Protection data. Fewer than 19,000 migrants from Asia and   
   Africa were apprehended in the fiscal year ended September 2021.   
      
   “The increase in migration from Asia and Africa is remarkable,” said   
   Enrique Lucero, head of the migrant support unit of the Tijuana city   
   government, across from San Diego. “These days, we are dealing with 120   
   nationalities and 60 different    
   languages.”    
      
   Travelers say they exchange information and share videos of U.S.-bound routes   
   on Tik Tok and Facebook, while smugglers offer lodging and travel agencies   
   advertise transport services. Most Asian and African migrants make multiple   
   airport stopovers in what    
   are coming to be known as “donkey flights” to reach countries such as   
   Brazil, Ecuador or Nicaragua, which have few or no visa requirements for some   
   nationalities.   
      
   Once they set foot in Latin America, they move north in buses or cars and stay   
   at hotels booked by smuggling organizations. Many wear bracelets similar to   
   those of an all-inclusive resort, with inscriptions that identify the   
   organization that coordinated    
   and charged them for the trip, Mexican authorities say.     
      
   For the second year in a row, arrests by the Border Patrol at the U.S.   
   Southern border surpassed two million. Most of them, almost nine out of 10   
   apprehensions, are of migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean. But the   
   surge in so-called    
   extracontinental migrants poses a challenge for the U.S. because deporting   
   migrants to Africa and Asia is time-consuming, expensive and sometimes not   
   possible.   
      
   Mohamed Aweineny, a 30-year-old Mauritanian who made his living as a driver,   
   left Mauritania Sept. 3. He followed a route from West Africa to Turkey, and   
   on to Colombia before flying to Nicaragua.   
      
   “I followed the internet to learn how to get to America without a visa,”   
   he said.    
      
   Once in Central America, and with the help of a smuggler he described as   
   “the head of the snake” because he belonged to a larger organization,   
   Aweineny headed north. He recorded his trek through tropical paths and boat   
   rides with his cellphone.    
   Aweineny crossed into San Diego before dawn on Sept. 22 and was released at a   
   makeshift migrant center three days later. Aweineny settled in New York, where   
   he said he is working with a migrant aid group to apply for asylum.   
      
   A senior Biden administration official said the U.S. government is recording   
   increasing migrant arrivals at the border from parts of the world that it   
   isn’t used to seeing.    
      
   “That puts a lot of strain on our operations because we just don’t have   
   longstanding ties or agreements in place with many countries in order to   
   facilitate quick removals. We are actively working on that,” the official   
   said, adding that high    
   migration levels from parts of the world that weren’t historically big   
   senders will likely continue.    
      
   Mexico has reported a fourfold increase in migrants from Asia and Africa so   
   far this year, including a surge in arrivals from Mauritania, neighboring   
   Senegal, India and China.    
      
   In July, Mexican authorities said they rescued 46 migrants from India,   
   Mauritania and Senegal who had been kidnapped by local gangs for four days at   
   a safe house in the northern state of Sonora. A month later, 129 migrants from   
   Egypt and eight    
   Mauritanians were apprehended by officials on a bus in the Gulf state of   
   Veracruz.   
      
   U.S. and Mexican officials have also seen an uptick in Chinese migrants, who   
   arrive through Ecuador after China’s government lifted pandemic mobility   
   restrictions. Indian migrants fly to Europe and then to Mexico City, or enter   
   the U.S. through Canada.    
   Some Afghans use Brazil as an entry point to the Americas.    
      
   U.S. and Mexican authorities have also reported a sharp increase in Russians   
   fleeing their homeland. They fly into Mexico from Turkey, with some 12,500   
   surrendering to U.S. authorities after illegally crossing the Southwest border   
   since the invasion of    
   Ukraine. Only 509 Russians were detained by the Border Patrol in fiscal year   
   2021.   
      
   Nicaragua, a Central American country under the authoritarian regime of   
   President Daniel Ortega that has strained relations with the U.S., has emerged   
   as a relatively new entry point for Africans wanting to head north. The United   
   Nations reported a    
   sixfold jump in African migration via the country during the first half of   
   this year. The mass arrivals generate millions of dollars in revenue for   
   Ortega’s government, which charges each migrant some $50 for a transit visa.   
      
   Arriving in Nicaragua allows the African migrants to bypass the deadly jungle   
   paths of the Darién Gap on their way to the U.S., through which a record   
   450,000 migrants have crossed so far this year, Panama officials say. That is   
   up from around 248,000    
   for the whole 2022.    
      
   “The Darién Gap stopped being the barrier it once was, but so has the   
   U.S.-Mexico border,” said Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy   
   Institute, a Washington think tank. “The chance of getting in is pretty good   
   right now, and it’s    
   becoming a global phenomenon.”   
      
   Once they get to Mexican border communities, some Asian migrants buy local   
   clothing, Texan-style boots and cowboy hats in an attempt to blend in and   
   avoid detection, said one Mexican official.   
      
   In Tijuana, mass arrivals of African migrants have overwhelmed some U.S. ports   
   of entry in recent weeks. Videos posted on social media showed large groups of   
   migrants gathering at a square in Tijuana before dawn and rushing to the   
   border fence, in some    
   cases crawling through holes.    
      
   Lucero, the city’s migration agency chief, said that the groups are mostly   
   made up of African migrants. They are guided by smugglers who hold them in   
   hotels to wait for the right time to sneak across.   
      
      
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