In an interview with Fox News Friday, the mayor of Tijuana said the people responsible for putting together the migrant caravans “are the real criminals.”

Mayor Manuel Gastélum excoriated those responsible for gambling with the Central Americans’ lives.

“Those are the real criminals because they’re dealing with the lives of people.”

Gastélum told Fox that the residents of his city are suffering due to the thousands camping in a soccer stadium and elsewhere, who are far from home and unable to get across the U.S.-Mexico border. Tijuana is bearing the brunt of aid due to Mexico’s lack of support.

In addition, as stated by Fox, the wet weather mixing with the crowd has resulted in a serious, sloppy mess:

“[C]onditions for the migrants in the tent city encampment worsened overnight with heavy winds and rain – flooding overcrowded spaces, leaving wet clothes, sleeping bags and litter strewn about an unsanitary and inhumane existence.”

Last week, the mayor declared the situation a “humanitarian crisis,” asking the international community to help the beleaguered city. Gastélum accused his country’s government of failing to fulfill its “legal obligations” to help (here).

Manuel explained that, during Sunday’s human stampede (here) — in which tear gas had to be dispensed (here) and for which many will be deported (here) — Tijuana suffered financially due to the Border Patrol stopping all vehicle and pedestrian traffic:

“In those six hours that the border was closed, we lost approximately 129 million pesos. That’s not fair. How do you think people from Tijuana feel towards those people who are making problems?”

As the city braces for financial rupture, Gastélum hopes new Mexican President Andrew Manuel Lopez Obrador — who is set to take office Saturday — will attend to the city’s needs:

“It’s problem he must solve, as soon as he gets into office.”

The mayor is right. As MSNBC reported from the scene Tuesday, the migrants were lured by talk of easy opportunity:

“Many of these men tell us that they heard in Honduras that it would be easy to cross into the United States. Some of them told us that they had heard that there were programs — work programs — that they would be eligible for.”

Some component of the American Left has surely been involved in the organizing and travel of as many as 10,000 Central Americans. More certainly, the cacophony of pro-illegal immigration among those across the political aisle — using the sleight of hand of language to refer to illegal immigration as simply “immigration” and therefore illegal immigrants as “immigrants” (here and here), what our nation was built by; championing the notion of sanctuary cities; hailing the illegal workforce as if it were a necessary cog in the American economy; and various other trumpeting of a borderless world have played a part in the alert sounded around the world indicating that America had no locks on its doors. All of those who contributed to that internationally-held understanding are responsible for the thousands now waiting for half an hour to use a Port-o-Potty before they sleep on the dirt tonight.

Relevant RedState links in this article: here, here, here, and here.

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