How Selfies Fuel Rise in Illegal Migrants; Lawmakers Say Illegal Immigrants Taking Selfies to Celebrate Crossing Border; Rep. Comer: Migrants Taking Selfies at Border Reveals 'a lack of fear'

Georgett Roberts

How selfies fuel rise in illegal migrants:

Gov. Greg Abbott is busing hundreds of illegal border-crossers to New York, but those hundreds will become thousands for one reason: selfies.

Smart-phone technology is a massive driver of migration, sending the message to Central and South America of “wish you were here.”

People in Guatemala, Honduras and Venezuela use their phones to plug into chatrooms and social media networks that serve as a real-time intelligence network.

The network reports up-trail conditions, border crossings, violence, smuggling fees, and especially the availability of free stuff like clothes, food and shelter to those who are still down-trail. The intelligence networks don’t just tell with text. They show. Often with photographs and video of real people from the bus stations, on the buses, and in the shelters with their handouts, checks, documents and new clothes.

This works like any flash mob. It is always the phones that tell and show where the deportation and robbery zones are, so the crowds coming up behind can divert elsewhere. It is always the phones that tell of and show where to find the welcome mats and free giveaways, often exactly where and how to get them.

I know this because I have met and interviewed thousands of US-bound immigrants while they were on the trail to the US border, and at the border who have told me repeatedly of their heavy reliance on the phone network.

I’ve rarely met a supposedly impoverished US-bound migrant without a modern cellphone fully connected to the Internet and social media. There they were again, I noticed, in news photos of immigrants in New York homeless shelters. --->READ MORE HERE

Lawmakers say illegal immigrants taking selfies to celebrate crossing border:

Members of Congress claimed this week that migrants crossing the US-Mexico border illegally are snapping selfies to celebrate making it into America.

Lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee were joined by Fox News Digital earlier this week in Yuma, Ariz., for a firsthand look at the ongoing illegal immigration crisis at the southern frontier — which is only expected to grow worse in the coming weeks.

While touring the border area one night, the group reportedly observed at least two migrants taking a selfie while waiting for buses to arrive as Border Patrol agents looked on.

“They [human traffickers] use them to show everybody, ‘See? Look. Look how easy it was,’” National Border Patrol Council president Brandon Judd told Fox of the photos. “‘These people are happy. Pay me $1,000 and you can be happy as well.'” --->READ MORE HERE

Follow link below to a relevant story:

+++++Migrants snap selfies at border after crossing into US: Migrants taking selfies at border reveals 'a lack of fear' Rep. Comer tells Fox News Digital+++++

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