Securing America's Borders

In all my years of working on the border, I had never witnessed anything like what I would see at just one of hundreds of openly established raft crossing points along the south Texas border, a reflective microcosm of a mass illegal immigration involving mainly families and children. All through that night and deep into the morning on the Texas riverbank, I watched what reminded me of a D-Day-like … [Read more...] about How Normalized Mass Illegal Immigration Looks and Feels

The State of Texas has invested heavily in a new border security operation to fill what Republican leaders perceive as a federal failure at the southern border with Mexico. It has deployed the Texas Department of Public Safety air, land, and marine. The last time DPS similarly invested in border security like this was an $800 million Operation Strong Safety during the Obama administration … [Read more...] about A US State Deploys Forces to the Mass Migration Border Crisis

By Mark Krikorian and Todd Bensman on May 6, 2021 Summary During his recent trips to both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, Todd Bensman, the senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, spoke with human smugglers and their migrant customers, as well as border agents and local residents. Bensman shares their stories about the consequences of U.S. … [Read more...] about What I Saw at the US-Mexico Border: A CIS Podcast

Why the mass migration crisis is more severe than official reporting suggests. What the general public sees each month are CBP figures that only reflect actual physical “apprehensions” or “encounters”, published as the primary indicator of how many people are illegally crossing the land borders. But got-away statistics would true the total numbers higher into politically uncomfortable … [Read more...] about ‘Got-Aways’ at the Border

By Todd Bensman as published April 28, 2021 for the Center for Immigration Studies OJINAGA, Mexico — The nine Central Americans filed single file from a Mexican customs building at the Presidio-Ojinaga International Bridge and out onto the street with no food, no plan and the heavy burden of bad luck. The US Border Patrol had caught them on a ranch about 80 or 100 miles inside Texas … [Read more...] about Inside a Cartel Smuggling Operation Into West Texas

'There's no one watching', a smuggler says By Todd Bensman as published on April 27, 2021 by the Center for Immigration Studies OJINAGA, Mexico — Under the international bridge connecting this town to Presidio, Texas, a human smuggling guide snorted cocaine with a buddy and two prostitutes — the chosen rewards for work leading a large group of Central American immigrants on a … [Read more...] about The Border Crisis Comes to a Once-Quiet part of West Texas

The recent government enforcement moves against the Abid Ali Khan human smuggling network represent the latest salvo in an ongoing U.S. homeland security effort to combat jihadist border infiltration. The actions occur as a mass migration crisis at the border threatens to collapse normal border control systems and escalate this particular threat. By Todd Bensman as originally published … [Read more...] about Amid Border Crisis, U.S. Government Strikes at Pakistani Smuggler of ‘National Security Risk’ Migrants

Charters and Greyhound are delivering them where they want to go Tens of thousands of immigrants caught illegally crossing the border and then released under the new leniency policy of President Joe Biden are now dispersing to four corners of the United States on buses, with some of the more moneyed ones taking passenger jets. They often drop their Haitian, Venezuelan, and Cuban passengers in … [Read more...] about Catch-and-Bus: Thousands of Freed Border-Crossing Immigrants are Dispersing Across America

CIS has identified at least five methods by which immigrants are end-running the Mexican military effort, which President Donald Trump demanded in 2019 (under threat of ruinous trade tariffs) and which the Biden administration is now counting on to help end the embarrassing political spectacle of a full-blown mass-migration crisis that is developing on our southern border. By Todd Bensman as … [Read more...] about How Illegal Immigrants Are End-Running Mexico’s Vaunted National Guard Cordon

By Todd Bensman as published March 30, 2021 by the Center for Immigration Studies PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico — When Anderson Castaneda left his native Honduras in October 2020, betting that a victorious President Joe Biden would open the borders wide, this medium-sized northern city of 165,000 across from Eagle Pass, Texas, was hardly his first choice. Nor even a close second or third. In fact, … [Read more...] about Illegal Immigrants Shopping Border Sectors Amid Unpredictable American Border Policy