By Julia Ainsley -
NBC News
WASHINGTON - The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is planning the creation of an intelligence gathering body to more closely monitor and better predict the movements of groups of migrants into the United States, such as the nearly 30,000 Haitians. that arrived in Texas last month, according to a copy of the plans obtained by our sister network NBC News.
The new cell, which will be operational by the end of the month, would provide the agency with "indications and warnings" of possible waves of migrants by collecting information from DHS personnel in Central America and the south, and would establish aerial surveillance over trucks and camps. of migrants concentrating on the borders and would increase communication with the US intelligence community and security agencies in other countries, according to the planning document.
[The Government suspends the accelerated expulsion policy that prevented immigrants from appearing before a judge]
The DHS could thus reinforce the areas of the border where waves are expected and counteract the messages spread by the cartels and the hoaxes on social networks that claim that the United States will allow all migrants arriving now to stay.
A senior DHS official noted that the US strategy is to counteract false messages before migrants embark on dangerous journeys: "Once they are in Mexico, it is too late," he said.
Gathering and disseminating intelligence on migratory movements used to fall to the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis, according to two current DHS officials and two former DHS workers, but the office stopped regularly creating reports on migrant movements during the DHS Administration. former President Donald Trump.
A group of migrants, many of them from Haiti, wade across the Rio Grande to leave Del Rio, Texas, and return to Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, early on Wednesday, September 22, 2021, some to avoid a possible deportation of The United States and others to load up on supplies.Fernando Llano / AP
The two former officials, who worked for the Trump administration, explained that the office was greatly weakened during the previous Administration, but that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service Customs (ICE) did much of its own intelligence gathering.
But the two current officials said the Biden Administration has had to rebuild the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis so that all parts of DHS get the same reliable information about the groups that could reach the U.S. border in real time. .
[The Biden Administration plans to reinstate Trump's 'Stay in Mexico' policy in mid-November]
“The Trump Administration's almost singular focus on building a border wall as the solution to stopping illegal migration and the entry of illegal drugs into the country actually turned out the opposite.
It allowed key intelligence and operational capabilities to atrophy, "said one of the officials, appointed by President Joe Biden, on condition of anonymity.
Senior officials from CBP, ICE, the Office of Intelligence and Analysis and the Coast Guard met Wednesday to finalize the plans, according to officials.
On video: The moment a Mexican agent hits a pregnant migrant
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In the short term, each agency will staff the new department, which will operate out of Washington, to gather information on the waves of migrants that could soon arrive in the United States, according to officials.
Part of its mission will be to create and monitor algorithms that can monitor social media conversations about migratory movements.
Immigrants often communicate on Facebook and WhatsApp to organize.
In northern Colombia and Panama, for example, more than 20,000 migrants from Haiti gather, who may soon decide to try to emigrate to the United States.
In the long term, according to other documents obtained by NBC News, DHS would collect more biometric data on migrants as they cross the borders on their way to the U.S., so that more is known about who might be approaching the U.S. border soon. , according to the documents.
["ICE agents won't stop people on their way to work," Mayorkas promises]
The Office of Intelligence and Analysis would also work with countries such as Colombia, Haiti, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico to enter into agreements that allow greater intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, according to the copy of the plans, significantly increasing the amount of intelligence both human as well as signals that DHS gathers in the region.
The objective is to "institutionalize" the information collection systems so that future administrations cannot dismantle them, according to officials.
DHS did not respond to a request for comment.
Lee Gelernt, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) who has sued the Biden government for its policies preventing asylum seekers from entering the country, said increasing surveillance of asylum seekers immigrants is a step in the wrong direction.
[ICE will not be able to arrest and deport immigrants "just for being undocumented," according to new regulations]
"Rather than creating a surveillance system to deter immigrants seeking protection, the Administration should focus on meeting its legal and moral obligation to provide desperate asylum seekers with a hearing," Gelernt said.
