Todd Bensman, the Center’s Senior National Security Fellow, is on the ground tracking U.S. -bound migrants in southern Mexico at the Guatemalan border. His footage shows rafts carrying human and commercial cargo from Guatemala to Mexico across the Rio Suchiate, with the Guatemalan side now also controlled by organized crime.
Bensman found in interviews with the raft pilots that migrant traffic has increased due the upcoming U.S. election and concern that former President Trump may win, despite Mexican efforts to temporarily contain the flow north to make the border issue seem less serious.