Five years almost to the day before President Donald Trump’s border officers blocked migrants with tear gas, authorities under President Barack Obama used identical tactics along the same stretch of border near the San Ysidro Port of Entry, according to 2013 press accounts.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reported November 25, 2o13:
The incident occurred about a quarter-mile west of the San Ysidro border crossing in the Tijuana River channel. No one was seriously injured, no shots were fired and no arrests were made, said Mary Beth Caston, a Border Patrol spokeswoman.
The group first approached a lone agent stationed about 1/8 of a mile north of the border. They ignored his commands to stop, so he fired pepper balls to try to stop them and protect himself, Caston said.
As the crowd kept advancing and throwing rocks and bottles, she said, more agents came to the scene and used other “intermediate use-of-force devices” to push back the group. The agents also contacted Mexican law enforcement.
In 2018, on November 25, border officers used tear gas to drive migrants back from a border fence they were seeking to push through.
The incident took place at almost the same location, but five years apart. The major difference is that Trump’s deputies installed a temporary barrier to fill a gap between permanent fences.
KPBS News reported the 2013 clash, saying:
Deported migrants attempted a once-common tactic of rushing the border en masse on Sunday. But Border Patrol agents met them with tear gas and rubber bullets and forced them to turn back.
Deportees in Tijuana said plans to rush the border had been in the works for a week.
It all started with a guy handing out pocket-sized fliers at the Padre Chava breakfast hall for migrants and deportees in Tijuana. The fliers called for a mass border crossing on Nov. 24.
“So that we can reunite with our children, families,” the flier read in small, Spanish text.
According to the Union-Tribune, pro-migration groups defended the 2013 migrants, saying they were “desperate:”
Immigrant-rights groups in San Diego said they didn’t know beforehand about the plan to rush the border, and they worry that desperation is driving homeless deportees to make a bold bid to rejoin their families in the United States.
…
Christian Ramirez, human rights director for the Southern Border Communities Coalition, said he does not believe the move could have been a strategic protest. He views it as an act of desperation on the part of deportees who have been pushed to live around the river in makeshift camps or those who are set up in other migrant camps in the city.
In 2018, progressives and pro-migration activists supported the aggressive migrants.
Read it all here.
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