NBC News reports the Department of Homeland Security is planning to build an “intelligence-gathering” cell to closely surveil the movement of groups of migrants in Central and South America who may be making their way to the United States to seek asylum. DHS officials are also seeking to establish aerial surveillance of trucks and migrant camps across multiple borders and increase collaboration between Central and South American authorities and U.S. agents. The cell will reportedly be operational by the end of October.
This comes as some 90,000 migrants hoping to reach the U.S. for refuge remain trapped in the southern Mexican city of Tapachula. This is Luis García, a human rights advocate.
Luis García Villagrán: “The Biden administration will give $20 million to the Mexican and Central American governments to contain migrants and to find out what is going on. They should give $10 million to this city, and then all of us could stay here. But they should do it under the scrutiny of the whole world; otherwise, the money just goes into containment and deportation that the Mexican government is carrying out.”