by Frank Gafney
Center For Immigration Studies (CIS) August 26, 2024
@BensmanTodd has returned from Colombia and Panama where he scouted the human smuggling trail through the DARIÉN GAP jungle: “a major national security threat to the United States.” Bensman says the new president of Panama, José Raúl Mulino, has made “a major u-turn” on migration policy. Mulino wants to shut the trail down, and he has started doing it, with weekly deportation flights. He asked for U.S. financial support for the flights. According to Bensman: “The U.S. has not ponied up like they said they would.” Bensman reports that on July 1, the Biden Harris administration signed an agreement with Panama saying the U.S. would fund repatriation flights from Panama. “That’s a national security move of a high order, for us, to help them shut that thing down.
The repatriation flights are the exact recommendation that I’ve given in both of my books — a U.S.-funded [flights program] from Panama, Colombia and Costa Rica, all at the same time.” “But what I found was that there was a really long delay, no money was coming. The Panamanian [government officials] complained to me.” Bensman reported seeing people still pouring through, entering the jungle from the Colombia side, exiting from the Panamanian side. “I saw them myself,” he said. “A rich and multi-national population” continues to pass through the Darién Gap. The Chinese coming through are “highly cash-rich, wanting for nothing…. The ones I saw were single men,” Bensman said. “They never talk.” Bensman said he believes the Panamanian operation is short-term and is not intended to permanently solve illegal border-crossing. “I presumed the Biden Harris administration would go all in, with the Panamanians, until November 5. Because [Panama is] very interested in slowing the flow.”
Bensman has reported previously on the deal that the Biden Harris administration made with Mexico’s President López Obrador in December. President Biden and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken both went down to Mexico to meet with Mexican officials in person. “Then Mexico immediately began scraping up, off of their northern border with ours, tens of thousands of intending border-crossers, and forced them onto planes and buses, and shipped them south to [Mexico’s] southern provinces and blocked them in there…. Probably 100,000 of them are piled in down there behind militarized road blocks.” The Biden Harris administration has kept its negotiations with Mexico secret. “They’re not even copping to the fact that they cut a deal,” Bensman said. “But they did cut a deal. 60 Minutes had the Mexican president acknowledging there was a deal, and asking for $20 billion.” Bensman says the Mexican and Panamanian negotiations are proof that the Biden Harris administration can secure the U.S.-Mexico border without any help from Congress. “The deal in Mexico shows they needed no legislation. Work with the Mexicans and the Panamanians, and you’re done…. The [bipartisan border bill] is a red herring. That piece of legislation does the exact opposite of border control. It codifies a minimum of 1.8 million illegal entries before enforcement would even begin — and even that enforcement is discretionary! So, it’s just a bogus piece of legislation.”
Bensman points out that while the Biden Harris administration claims they need to bring in more Border Patrol agents, “those agents are to process [illegal aliens] in, not to block them.”
SOURCE: Securing America with Frank Gaffney, August 26, 2024.
