Why the extra mileage in caravan route?

Little attention has been paid by the media to the planning of the caravan, but examination of the chosen route shows deliberate strategy in selection of the route.  Besides prolonging maximum publicity, the chosen route brought migrants to the state most likely to welcome them, California.

Coming from Guatemala, they could have reached the U.S. much more quickly had they headed for McAllen TX, as Kris Kobach points out in his article, Understanding the caravan – the map says it all.

“… The path to McAllen is approximately 1,300 miles long; whereas the path to San Diego is approximately 2,700 miles long. So the caravan travelled more than twice as far as it needed to.

“Why in the world would they do that? They didn’t have their own vehicles, and they weren’t carrying enough food or resources to justify the longer journey. …

“…Travelling the extra 1,400 miles to Tijuana/San Diego would take the migrants to the Ninth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals, with its numerous judges willing to minimize the President’s statutory authority to restrict entry of aliens into the United States. And the presence of similar federal judges at the district level in California would increase the probability that the migrants’ attorneys would obtain an initial ruling in their favor.

“… The second reason for travelling twice the distance is that California is a sanctuary state with dozens of sanctuary cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco. Those jurisdictions will actively seek to protect the migrants who enter illegally from deportation.

“…  In contrast, in Texas, law enforcement agencies like the Texas Department of Public Safety cooperate with federal officials to improve border enforcement. To be sure, there are some sanctuary cities in Texas too; but it’s nothing like California.

“In short, the migrants’ attorneys made sure that the caravan went the extra mile—or extra 1,400 miles—to arrive where the rule of law is the weakest in the United States. And their advice appears to be paying off. Federal immigration enforcement personnel can still prevail, but the playing field is tilted against them.”

Read the entire article here: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/12/05/kris-kobach-understanding-the-caravan-the-map-says-it-all/

Article’s i.d. for author:  “Kris W. Kobach is the elected Secretary of State of Kansas. An expert in immigration law and policy, he coauthored the Arizona SB-1070 immigration law and represented in federal court the 10 ICE agents who sued to stop Obama’s 2012 DACA executive amnesty. During 2001-03, he served as U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft’s chief adviser on immigration and border security at the U.S. Department of Justice. His website is kriskobach.com.”