An El Paso-Juárez border bridge was blocked Tuesday overnight when a huge group of Cubans and other migrants tired of waiting in Mexico showed stormed into the United States.
Some left-leaning media reported that there were only 100 immigrants and they didn’t report about Biden’s chants.
Almost lost in the distractions of the holiday weekend, on the night of December 29 up to 400 mostly Cuban migrants forced their way past Mexican immigration and overpayment turnstiles on the Paso del Norte Bridge from Ciudad Juarez with a desire to force their way into downtown El Paso, Texas, according to news reporting.
Trump’s MPP and “Remain In Mexico Policy” saved the day!
Shortly after 9 p.m., the bridge was shut down by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers with riot shields. The road was blocked by concrete barricades topped with rows of concertina wire at the top of the bridge.
The Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as MPP and the “Remain in Mexico” policy, requires most asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for hearings before a U.S. immigration judge.
“Biden, Biden,” the migrants chanted, referring to U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, while approaching the border at the crest of the bridge over the Rio Grande, reported the Diario de Juárez newspaper.
The migrants had heard a false rumor that they would be allowed to enter the United States, Juárez news outlets reported.
But with Trump still presiding, the blocked migrants with Biden on their minds were forced to listen to a recorded message broadcast over loudspeakers in Spanish and English warning that any further trouble would be met by force, arrests, and prosecution. That went on until the crowd dispersed at about dawn on December 30.
Videos below:
A large group of people gathered at the U.S.-Mexico border on the Paso Del Norte Bridge near El Paso Tuesday night, causing CBP to place barricades and close traffic.
Read more: https://t.co/u0Htix6ihX
(Video Courtesy: KINT) pic.twitter.com/h8uzMzEHL4
— KFOX14 News (@KFOX14) December 30, 2020
This was not the first time CBP under Donald Trump has forcefully responded to surging migrants hoping to overrun the port of entry at El Paso and will almost certainly not be the last there or elsewhere.
Especially not now, judging by the chants and media interviews on the Paso del Norte Bridge this time about Biden’s many immigration promises heard widely throughout the Americas and beyond, including an amnesty bill, an end to deportations, and reversal of Trump immigration policies during his first 100 days in office. While sharp analysts like my CIS colleague Mark Krikorian judge that Biden is likely to slow-boil the frog on some of his immigration promises for pragmatic political reasons, what was said on the international bridge during the recent confrontation confirms that migrants don’t necessarily pay close attention to in-the-weeds political timing so much as big, broad, and directional messages.
The migrants on that bridge showed up with high expectations that the coming Biden administration somehow had already managed to swing open the gates as promised, never mind that Trump still has a few weeks to go.