DISINFO: Criminal groups are behind the migrant caravans heading to the US
DISINFORMATION CASE DETAILS
  • Outlet: mundo.sputniknews.com (archived)*
  • Date of publication: January 21, 2021
  • Outlet language(s): Spanish
  • Reported in: Issue 229
  • Countries / regions discussed: US
Tags:
migration Joe Biden

DISINFO: Criminal groups are behind the migrant caravans heading to the US

SUMMARY

A new migrant caravan is heading towards the US. Who wants to test the Biden Administration? There are power groups, which may be either political or mafias, behind the creation of those caravans, which are used as cannon fodder to test the reaction of the US, in this case of the Biden Administration, to elaborate their criminal businesses strategies. This doesn’t mean that the members of those caravans realize that they are being used to favour dark interests.

RESPONSE

Conspiracy theory not backed by any evidence. On the contrary, there is ample evidence that these caravans are usually organised either spontaneously through social media or with the help of pro-immigration activist groups, not by criminal gangs or political power groups as claimed. Though criminal organisations are involved in smuggling irregular immigrants through the US border, migrant caravans are the opposite: a survival strategy and a form of groupal protection against the violence and arbitrariness of the same criminal gangs.

Similar claims were initially made by then-US president Donald Trump in October and November 2018, who said without evidence that there were gang members” and “lots of criminals” among the members of a caravan that was heading to the US at the time, and that Democrats were paying some of them. Though the claims were immediately found to be unsubstantiated, the topic remained popular among conservative and anti-immigration sectors in the US and other countries.

The claim that external actors promote migration for their own interests is a recurrent pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative. See other examples in our database, such as claims that the refugee influx in 2016 was masterminded by George Soros, that the US destabilised Eritrea to provoke massive migration flows to Europe, that the migration crisis is organized by Illuminati bankers, secret services and EU governments, or that the US is promoting the “Balkanisation” of Europe through terrorist attacks, the refugee crisis and the rise of autocratic governments.

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Disclaimer

Cases in the EUvsDisinfo database focus on messages in the international information space that are identified as providing a partial, distorted, or false depiction of reality and spread key pro-Kremlin messages. This does not necessarily imply, however, that a given outlet is linked to the Kremlin or editorially pro-Kremlin, or that it has intentionally sought to disinform. EUvsDisinfo publications do not represent an official EU position, as the information and opinions expressed are based on media reporting and analysis of the East Stratcom Task Force.

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