Homeland Security reportedly paying undercover informants inside migrant caravan

Migrants walk toward Tijuana.
(Image credit: Pedro Pardo/AFP/Getty Images)

The Department of Homeland Security is paying undercover informants inside the migrant caravan headed to the southern border, two DHS officials told NBC News on Tuesday.

There are about 4,000 migrants in the caravan, most of them from Central America, and to communicate, they are using WhatsApp to text. DHS personnel are monitoring those messages, the officials said, as well as working with the Mexican government to keep track of the size of the caravan and any possible security threats.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.