While people keep an eye on Washington as the second Trump Administration takes shape, many of them have the other eye anxiously fixed on the southern border. With Border Patrol expecting to finally receive more support to do their job and border-czar-in-waiting Tom Homan declaring that many illegal aliens will be returned, Americans are curious if there will be a last-ditch surge in entries before the window slams shut. Ali Bradley is a News Nation national correspondent; she appeared on the WOR Morning Show and says she’s seeing signs that the word may be getting out- don’t go to the United States.
“They’re still bracing for what could be,” Bradley told host Larry Mendte. “There’s a lot of speculation that there’s going to be kind of a mad dash to get in before Trump and Vance do, because once they get in that kind of open door is going to be closed, but here’s the thing: Crossings, when it comes to port and between the ports- the so-called ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ entries- are actually down by nearly 1,000 a day following the Trump-Vance victory. So when we compare October 6th to the 13th to November 6th to the 13th, we’re looking at nearly 5,000 fewer crossings. [Meanwhile] what I’m hearing over in Mexico is that Mexico is actually a little bit concerned about the second Trump Administration and the tariffs that he is promising to bring with it, so they’re already playing ball over there.”
Bradley says the flip side to that coin, however, is that smugglers are finding ways to get around any increased border patrol presence. “We’re seeing people welded into the bodies of the trucks, people in gas tanks, we saw storm drain smuggling yesterday in El Paso. So, we’re seeing a lot of creative tactics being used by the cartel because… the cartel, back in 2018, [made] $500 million a year. They were moving a lot of drugs back then, but then they figured out people are more lucrative. As disgusting as that sounds, that is the reality, because you can get money out of people multiple times. Not only do they pay at the border, but then they’re on the hook to pay the cartel once they get to their destination, and if they don’t, they know where their abuela is down in Venezuela.”
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