Over the past week, this caravan group has started up from Honduras. Numbers? News groups suggest 9k to 10k presently. Destination? Generally....they are headed to the Guatemalan border, and then onto the Mexico-Texas border. They have the understanding that President Biden will open up the border and just take them in....period.
My general belief? This is probably wave #1, and once they reach the border....wave #2 will start by early March, with wave #3 and wave #4 probably occurring by May and June.
Efforts by the Mexicans to stop it....like they did three years ago? That was entirely based on a unspecified 'deal' that Trump had with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.
Presently, with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador....and Trump gone....there's no deal.
So in about two weeks, with this caravan progressing on through Mexico to the closest border point (southern tip of Texas), there's a 2,400 km walk involved. The news folks will be asking how President Biden intends to handle this.
This is what I suggest will unfold.
By early next week, a State Department chief (probably the #3 guy/gal) will attempt to talk to the Mexican State Department and get some understanding that they need to slow down or halt the caravan. The Mexican guy will ask....why are you talking to me? This ought to be a President-to-President conversation.
A couple of days will pass and the new Secretary of State will make the phone call, to the Mexican Secretary of State.....same response....why isn't President Biden talking?
VP Harris will attempt to conduct this conversation....again, failure.
By this point, the Texas Governor has gotten into the mess, and ordered National Guardsmen from the state to form a border protection plan. He'll be told by the Pentagon and State Department that he can't do this. He'll respond that Texas protects Texans.
So finally, around the first week of February, with the caravan only 300 miles from the border....the White House prepares President Biden for this 30-minute chat with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. They have a board in front of President Biden, with the four talking points, and the first line of the conversation totally laid out. All of this will be done by phone.
The conversation starts off with 'howdy', and some well wishes for Mexico.
The Mexican guy responds and asks why they can't VTC this...instead of a phone-call. He notes to Biden that his staff spent $300k on a fantastic VTC system, and it's state of the art....direct from Hong Kong.
President Biden starts to get side-tracked, and starts to address Obrador by 'Andy' (Americanized form for Andres). Obrador is a bit frustrated by this.....he remembers this from the high school days and hates the Americanized name 'Andy'.
Biden hints that this caravan needs to be halted....real quick.
Obrador asks.....what's the deal?
'Deal' responds Biden....we don't freaking deal. We aren't like those Trump idiots.
'Consequences' will be the response from Obrador.
So Obrador lays out the deal....he wants the old NAFTA agreement put back into effect. He wants $100-million a month for the drug war in Mexico, for a minimum of one year. He wants 700,000 tons of coal....free of charge. He wants a MLB baseball team to be moved into Mexico City by 2023.
Biden, runs onto a short fuse and starts uttering five or six things which can't be repeated. His frustration level has hit maximum, and the seven guys standing around him are holding their hands up.....'stop' is whispered over and over.
Biden eventually slams the phone down, and the team stands there in shock. Nothing can be worked out now.
A couple of days later, the caravan reaches the border and Texas National Guardsmen start to round them up. Federal customs people try to intercede. Another national crisis starts up. The rounded-up caravan members.....near 10k....are grabbed by federal officials.
A plan will be cranked-up.....forty refugee camps will be built by FEMA around mostly red states. Several states pass legislation that no such camps can exist in their state. The Supreme Court? It refuses to hear any of the challenges. National Guardsmen from these states are now ordered to dismantle the FEMA camps.
Mexican President Obrador? He grins for the cameras and tells his entire story. He more or less pushed back on the great American 'beast' and won. He is regarded as a 'hero' to the Mexican people.
As for the staff around Biden? By the end of March, they now realize that he can't be controlled or depended upon. Talk starts up by April that the 25th Amendment business to remove a President might actually start by mid-summer, as the 4th wave of caravan migrants hits the border.