All Things Possible Ministries has been looking for ways to alleviate some of the suffering that is involved with the migrant crisis. We want to help defend our borders while simultaneously protecting the vulnerable women and children that are trapped in the middle of this disaster. We went deeper into this problem and traveled to Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, and Colombia to experience key points along this migrant journey for ourselves. It is worse than we even imagined. We’ve determined where we will weight our efforts and will continue to update everyone as we embark on establishing some new operational areas for ATP.

The Problem as We Outlined it Previously:.

Weaponized migration is a term used for organized mass exodus of refugees and migrants from one state to another state as a “weapon” against that ‘targeted’ state.

Weaponized migration occurs when a challenging state or non-state actor exploits human migration—whether voluntary or forced—in order to achieve political, military, and/or economic objectives. Strategically engineered migration is far more common than most people realize. At any given time, somewhere in the world, leaders inside or outside governments are likely manipulating migrants and/or refugees to pursue political, military, or economic objectives. When governments or others “weaponize migration,” they manipulate or exploit the movement of people- or threaten to do so- to achieve a strategic objective. Often, the “humanitarian support” for this migration can be a cover for action as agendas are being met to chip away at another nations’ stability.

The long term effects of this migrant crisis are existential for the United States. As huge numbers of people come in, they’re automatically going to ghettoize, and the economic strain will be severe. If we bring large numbers of people from other cultures that aren’t ready for our culture, or they can’t assimilate into our culture because they are illegally here, they’re not going to automatically get absorbed. They’re going to form insular human islands that have their own forms of rules, laws, and customs. These are the things that enemies can use later, and are using currently, to split people apart. They want to cause people to fight each other.

Migrants are coming from all over the world seeking a better life and more economic opportunity in America. Very few of them are fleeing persecution and violence and very few of them qualify for asylum. They are coming to the “Land of Opportunity” and are willing to risk everything to get here.

The picture to the right is another mural painted on the wall in southern Mexico that coaches migrants in what they need to say in order to be considered for asylum and moved into the next step of the process. The mural coaches- “If you are afraid of returning to your country because your life is in danger, request protection as a refugee in Mexico.”

The current situations in Haiti and Cuba have little to no effect on what is happening right now. The migrants we met from Haiti, Cuba, and Venezuela left their home countries years ago and have been living as legal and illegal immigrants in countries like Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and others for years.

Most of the migrants we met in McAllen, Texas and Del Rio, Texas came from Central American countries- El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. These migrants have a journey that is a mixture of planes, trains, busses, and taxis with very little foot movement necessary to make their way to the US border.

The migrants we met on this trip were from the Caribbean (Cuba and Haiti), Africa, and South America. These migrants must traverse the Darien Gap on foot to get here.

1 out of 10 die and disappear on this dangerous trek through the jungle. ATP traveled the migrant journey in reverse. We flew to Mexico City and then to Tapachula Mexico. We drove down to Ciudad Hidalgo, Chiapas and crossed the Suchiate River into Ayutla, Guatemala before returning to Tapachula. We then flew to Panama City and drove down the Pan American Highway to the Darien Province and canoed up the Chucunaque River to the Embera village of Bajo Chiquito. We then reversed course and returned to Panama City before flying to Cartagena Colombia for the final mission of the trip

Since October of last year, U.S. agents have conducted 1,276,000 apprehensions or expulsions of migrants crossing the U.S. border illegally, including nearly 200,000 in July alone.

Tapachula has become accustomed to immigrants from Haiti and is used to seeing about 200-300 arrive each week to seek asylum. Starting in July, those numbers ballooned tenfold to 2000-3000 Haitian immigrants arriving in Tapachula. As stated above, these Haitians are not fleeing the current situation and unrest in Haiti, most of the Haitians left their homeland years ago and have been living in a third party country and are now on the move because of the Biden Administration policies. Migrants in Tapachula get stranded in the city for months. Many of them live on the streets and in packed tenements and converted migrant hotels.

While in Tapachula, we witnessed busses of Haitian migrants arriving from Guatemala and taken to a hotel that looked vacant. We initially visited the hotel to see if this might be a place that we could rent to offer shelter and schooling for the migrants stranded in the city. The security guard explained to us that the hotel was not vacant, but it was also not open to the public. It had been converted to a hotel for migrants only.

Dozens were packed to a room and few of them ventured out, fearing that the Mexican police might arrest them. You had to look closely to see the signs of thousands of migrants holing up in Tapachula. Some reported to us that they spent weeks inside, hiding from authorities, waiting for an opportunity to continue their journey north.

We tried to visit the detention center in Tapachula named Siglo XXI, which means “21st century” in Spanish. It is reportedly the largest detention center in Latin America and is a “secretive place off-limits to public scrutiny where … journalists aren’t allowed”. We were not allowed in, and we were not able to get our drone over it to capture any pictures.

For migrants who have just endured perilous journeys after escaping hazardous conditions in their own countries – all with the hope of eventually making it to perceived safety in the US – the psychological torture of being condemned to indefinite and criminalized limbo is not necessarily conducive to a desire for self-preservation.

We saw migrants emerge from the jungle in the small Embero village called Bajo Chiquito. This small village of a couple hundred Embaro Indians is completely overwhelmed with 1000 migrants each day flooding their village, half dead, confused and delirious.

In May, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières‎ (MSF) opened programs in Bajo Chiquito—the first village that migrants reach in Panama. Since then, their teams have provided medical and mental health care to more than 14,000 people who have crossed the Darien Gap. In July alone, their small team of 15—including medical, mental health, and logistical personnel—provided 6,000 consultations. Most people require treatment for trauma wounds, skin conditions, and foot injuries caused by the treacherous journey across wet, muddy, and steep terrain. The clinic dedicates a portion of its facility to pregnant women, mothers, and newborns “but it is not a hospital.”

The number of infants and babies carried on this trek is mind boggling. This phenomenon is a direct result of the current Biden Administration policy where a child provides free unfettered access to the United States for the family accompanying it.

Since 2017, the number of children crossing the Darien Gap has skyrocketed from 109 to 1,653 in 2020. This is fifteen times more children migrating through the Panama jungle in the last four years. The proportion of children among the migrant population through this jungle has dramatically risen in the past few years. Children accounted for only 2 per cent of all these migrants in 2017; but for more than 25 per cent in 2020. In the past 4 years, over 46,500 migrants have crossed the Darien jungle out of which 6,240 are children.

We saw children alone. We saw children with “families” and young men that were not their fathers.

But despite the risks, people continue to attempt the journey. By the end of July, around 8,000 migrants were waiting to start their trek through the Darién Gap. So far this year, Panama estimates about 49,000 migrants have come through the dangerous, jungle-clad gap. Officials estimate about 16% of them are children or youths.

Local officials estimate more than 10,000 migrants have massed recently in Necocli, a Colombian city that has become a bottleneck on the global migrant trail that winds through South and Central America, and on to Mexico and then the U.S. southern border.

Necocli residents say they have never seen so many migrants and city authorities have declared a “public calamity” because of water shortages caused by the additional demand from the migrants.

Our team from ATP continued “upstream” and went to check out another place where we felt there was a bottleneck of migrants that were vulnerable for exploitation. Cartagena is the most visited city in Colombia. Tourists from all over the world arrive seeking its Caribbean charm- sun, breeze, sea, the small streets under little balconies… And of course, some of them are looking for sex.

The sex trade and sex procurement are issues that make headlines and conversations again and again. Even though it is not new or exclusive to this city – the same occurs in many destinations with tourism potential – the situation in Cartagena has unique elements.

The migrant women and children from neighboring countries is a crucial ingredient.

We can personally attest to the fact that sex work and exploitation are easy to find with a quick walk by the historic center. Every night, in front of the Torre del Reloj, the main entrance to the old city, women offer their bodies for sale with many of them underage.

Reportedly, sex workers earn between $30 and $50 “for a moment.” The women and girls we interviewed cost only $8 for the night, doing mostly anything the buyer desires.

Slightly more than a million people live in Cartagena, of whom 262,000 are poor, and around 40,000 live in extreme poverty. This dire need is invisible to the tourists that wander through the walled city, who can pay $70 dollars for a meal in one of the exclusive restaurants in the city, a sum equivalent to what a Colombian working for minimum wage makes in a week. This level of inequality has turned the city into a fertile ground for the sex trade, but measures to address it appear to be few, and fail to go beyond slogans or institutional positions.

Many of these women and girls are from Venezuela.

Colombia hosts the largest Venezuelan diaspora of nearly 2 million people. In February 2021, the Colombian government announced a plan to provide a 10-year renewable regular migratory status to 1.7 million Venezuelans, most of them undocumented, living in the country.

The women and girls we talked with were smart, entrepreneurial, and ready to accept new opportunities.