More than 600 members of the 10,000 migrants traveling from Central America to the U.S. are convicted criminals, the country’s top security official said Monday evening.
In a Facebook post defending U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s handling of a large group of people who attempted to run over the U.S.-Mexico border Sunday, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said a significant number of those migrants were known as criminals in their countries of origin.
“[W]e cannot confirm the backgrounds and identities of all caravan members which possess a national security and public safety risk to our country. However, at this point we have confirmed that there are over 600 convicted criminals traveling with the caravan flow. This includes individuals known to law enforcement for assault, battery, drug crimes, burglary, rape, child abuse and more. This is serious,” Nielsen wrote. “Additionally, Mexico has already arrested 100 caravan members for criminal violations in Mexico.”
[Related: DHS: Caravan migrants from 20 countries, include 270 convicted criminals]
For weeks, the Trump administration has claimed criminals and other people who are not from Central America, including Middle Easterners, were among the caravan groups, which U.S. officials say are comprised mostly of adult men.
Last week, NBC News reported DHS had paid informants embedded within the caravan groups, which began arriving in northern Mexican towns two weeks ago. The report also said the government has been reading messages migrants are sending through messaging app WhatsApp to learn where they are headed and how they might plan to illegally enter the country if they do not wait in Mexico while applying for asylum in the U.S.
DHS spokeswoman Katie Waldman told NBC News the department has a responsibility of looking into people who may attempt to illegally enter the U.S.
“While not commenting on sources or methods, it would be malpractice for the United States to be ignorant about the migrants — including many criminals — attempting to entry our country. We have an obligation to ensure we know who is crossing our borders to protect against threats to the Homeland and any indication to the contrary is misinformed,” Waldman said.
DHS also said it’s been obtaining information from unnamed sources, including the Mexican government.
However, Nielsen did not state Monday the sources behind the 600 figure, but suggested that the criminals in the caravans were part of the reason for violence at the Tijuana-San Diego border Sunday.
“[T]he violence we saw at the border was entirely predictable,” she said. “This caravan, unlike previous caravans, had already entered #Mexico violently and attacked border police in two other countries. I refuse to believe that anyone honestly maintains that attacking law enforcement with rocks and projectiles is acceptable. It is shocking that I have to explain this, but officers can be seriously or fatally injured in such attacks. Self-defense isn’t debatable for most law-abiding Americans.”
