Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday said Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández told him that the migrant caravan marching toward the U.S.-Mexico border is “financed by Venezuela.”
Pence made the allegation while defending President Donald Trump’s assertion that Middle Easterners make up a part of the 7,000-strong caravan in an interview with Washington Post national political reporter Robert Costa.
“It’s inconceivable that there are not people of Middle Eastern descent in a crowd of more than 7,000 people advancing toward our border,” Pence said. “In the last fiscal year, we apprehended more than 10 terrorists or suspected terrorists per day at our southern border from countries that are referred to in the lexicon as ‘other than Mexico’ — that means from the Middle East region.”
The Vice President then revealed that Hernández told him that “leftist groups” from the Central American country organized the caravan, “financed by Venezuela” to “challenge our sovereignty, challenge our border.”
Pence also said he has held discussions with Guatemalan president Jimmy Morales and Mexican officials about the caravan and vowed to do “everything in our power” from preventing the migrants from “violating” the southern border.