China Is Challenging The US In Central America, And Washington Can’t Do Anything

El Salvador’s Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda (L) shakes hands with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing on August 21, 2018

 

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in Central America late last week when he criticized China’s rising influence there by questioning the intentions behind its investment activity, which prompted the country’s media to angrily respond earlier this week and lambast the US for trying to “drive a wedge” into Sino-Latin American relations. Washington is worried that Central America is slipping out of its hegemonic control after tiny El Salvador broke ties with Taiwan in August and recognized Beijing as China’s legitimate government in exchange for economic support, which some observers feared could catalyze a chain reaction in this part of the world where the self-proclaimed country counts a handful of its dwindling supporters.

Chinese Communist Party Funds Washington Think Tanks

China’s President Xi Jinping / Getty Images

 

United Front Work Department conducts aggressive influence operations in U.S.

China’s Communist Party is intensifying covert influence operations in the United States that include funding Washington think tanks and coercing Chinese Americans, according to a congressional commission report.

The influence operations are conducted by the United Front Work Department, a Central Committee organ that employs tens of thousands of operatives who seek to use both overt and covert operations to promote Communist Party policies.

Media Shock Troops Go Full Pravda

 

On the left, we have the Time Magazine Pathos Shriek-Out, the photoshopped-in-our-collective-mind’s-eye image of Evil Trump “separating” toddlers from their families — except, of course, that the crying two-year-old (above) was never separated from her mother; and, of course, never met Donald Trump.

Note how Time stands by its propaganda: “Our cover and our reporting capture the stakes of this moment,” Time editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal said. The stakes? Perhaps Felsenthal conveyed more than he intended. Think of it: All “the stakes” that are fit to print. Political warfare in this country is at a risky flash point as the Left intensifies its attacks (including outrageous harassment of Trump officials) on the remnant rule of law undergirding the shredded sovereignty of this nation. What Felsenthal confirms is what we already know: The news media are not covering this political warfare; they are themselves shareholders in what is at risk — “the stakes” — and have made themselves special operators in the psychological battlefield.

Trump Administration Vows to ‘Devastate’ MS-13 Gang

L–R: Homeland Security secretary John Kelly, President Donald Trump, ad Attorney General Jeff Sessions. (Mark Wilson, Win McNamee, Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images)

 

President Donald Trump and two of his key cabinet chiefs addressed the growing problem of the violent transnational MS-13 gang on April 18, with Attorney General Jeff Sessions even saying the gang could qualify as a terrorist organization.

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly called MS-13 one of the greatest hazards the nation faces.

And Trump sent out a tweet: “The weak illegal immigration policies of the Obama Admin. allowed bad MS 13 gangs to form in cities across U.S. We are removing them fast!”

The MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha, gang was formed in Los Angeles in the 1980s by mostly-illegal immigrants who were escaping the civil war in El Salvador.

Mexico Ranked (By Verisk Maplecroft) As World’s Third Most Dangerous Country

The consulting firm Verisk Maplecroft compiled a Crime Rate Index for calendar year 2016, and Mexico was in third place, as the third most dangerous country in the world.  The list was released in December of 2016.

Verisk Maplecroft describes itself on its website as “a leading global risk analytics, research and strategic forecasting company offering an unparalleled portfolio of risk solutions.”

Here is the firm’s Top Ten Most Dangerous Countries list, with #1 as the most dangerous country in the world, #2 as the second most dangerous, and so on:

Overwhelmed Border Patrol Agents Stuck Serving Burritos to Illegal Immigrants

Border Patrol agents look over the primary fence separating Tijuana, Mexico, right, and San Diego / AP

Agents spending great amount of time taking care of kids, families

…

Border agents have expressed shock at the menial tasks they’ve been required to perform following a massive flow of illegal immigrant children across the U.S. southern border, according to Morgan, who warned that the force is being strained as a result of this influx.

During one recent trip to a border patrol outpost, “the supervisor in charge said, ‘Chief, we’re going to do whatever this country asks us to do, but I never thought in my 20 years that I would be, as part of procurement, ordering baby powder and baby wipes,’” Morgan recalled during Wednesday testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Texas governor extends National Guard deployments to monitor border

Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Tuesday extended the deployment of National Guard troops along the state’s border with Mexico to help block illegal crossings by unaccompanied children into the United States.

The deployments began 18 months ago when thousands of migrant families and unaccompanied youth began streaming over the border mainly from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. They were due to be completed at the end of December.

Report: 39,000 immigrant kids coming to U.S.

About 39,000 immigrant children are expected to enter the country illegally as unaccompanied minors this federal fiscal year, reaching the second-highest level of that migration since 2008, says an analysis issued Wednesday by a research group in Washington, D.C.

The estimate by the Migration Policy Institute, a nonprofit that studies the movement of people across international borders, is based on apprehension figures issued by U.S. Customs and Border Protection for the first five months of the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, 2014, and ends Sept. 30.

Many of the children coming from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala likely will be resettled where there are established Central American communities, such as Long Island’s Nassau and Suffolk counties, said Marc Rosenblum, the report’s author.

Mexico made deal to send more illegal aliens to the U.S.

On Monday, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Guatemalan president Otto Perez Molina held a joint press conference in Playas de Catazaja, Mexico, to officially announce an agreement to make it easier for those making the illegal journey to the United States from Central America, to cross into Mexico.

The Southern Border Program to Improve Passage, will provide for more border checkpoints along Mexico’s border with Guatemala, and offer more protection and even emergency medical care to those making their way north. The illegal aliens will receive a so-called Regional Visitor’s Card, according to El Universal.

General: Border crisis threatens U.S. existence

America’s porous southern border and the recent surge in illegal immigration is more than just a “humanitarian crisis,” claims the top U.S. general in charge of Central and South America, it’s a threat to the United States’ very existence.

Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly is commander of the U.S. Southern Command, or SOUTHCOM, charged with responsibility for the Caribbean Sea and all lands south of Mexico.

Particularly in regards to the drug trade, murder rates and terrorist activity brewing in Central America, Kelly says, the waves of Latin Americans sweeping through Mexico and illegally into Texas presents a threat to the U.S. every bit as serious as Iran or North Korea.

“In comparison to other global threats, the near collapse of societies in [this] hemisphere with the associated drug and [illegal immigrant] flow are frequently viewed to be of low importance,” Kelly said in an interview with Defense One. “Many argue these threats are not existential and do not challenge our national security. I disagree.”