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Bangladeshis Joined Migrant Caravan In Guatemala, Univision Correspondent Reports

[Screenshot/Youtube/Univision]

Benny Johnson Columnist, Viral Politics
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A Spanish language reporter who has spent weeks embedded with the migrant caravan said in a Friday report that people from Bangladesh had joined the mass of people trying to cross from Guatemala into Mexico.

Univision correspondent Francisco Santa Anna reported from the bridge separating Guatemala and Mexico. The bridge has been packed with thousands of migrants demanding access to Mexico, with the ultimate goal of crossing the border of the United States illegally. The caravan has now swelled to many thousands.

The Bangladeshis, he said, were detained in an immigration facility, though it’s not clear what happened to them after their detention. (RELATED:Train Of Central American Migrants Swells In Number Despite Warnings From Trump)

“The borders in Central American are not as strong as the U.S., which makes it possible for people from Panama and Ecuador to cross easily,” Santa Anna said on Univision. “They cross from Costa Rica, then later go through Guatemala and eventually make it into our country.”

“Yesterday when we were traveling through Guatemala, we noticed people from El Salvador and even people from Bangladesh,” he continued. “Can you imagine what they had to do to get here? They infiltrated themselves in this caravan and tried to cross with the crowd. That would have benefited them greatly.”

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Bangladesh has one of the largest populations of Muslims in the world. Its 141 million Muslims is more than the combined populations of Iran, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, Georgetown University professor C. Christine Fair noted in an essay in Lawfare.

The country is “increasingly the site of Islamist violence,” Fair wrote.

According to the essay “Political Islam and Islamist Terrorism in Bangladesh: What You Need to Know”:

Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) and the Islamic State (IS) have increased their activity in Bangladesh in recent years. IS has taken responsibility for attacks on foreigners, homosexuals, Shia, Ahmadis, Sufis, and other religious minorities, among other groups. Islamist militants have targeted secular writers and bloggers in particular, with an online “hit list.” Dozens of Bangladeshis, including persons of Bangladeshi extraction in the United Kingdom, have gone to fight with the Islamic State, and in April 2016, the organization’s English-language magazine, Dabiq, offered a tribute to a Bangladeshi militant who died in Syria.

The country of Bangladesh borders India and is many thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean from the caravan’s departure point.