Sickness, fear, harassment in Mexico whittle away at caravan
MAPASTEPEC, MEXICO — Little by little, sickness, fear and police harassment are whittling down the migrant caravan making its way to the U.S. border, with many of the 4,000 to 5,000 migrants who resumed their journey Thursday complaining of exhaustion.
The group, many with children and even pushing toddlers in strollers, departed Mapastepec at dawn with more than 1,000 miles still to go before they reach the U.S. border.
They have advanced just 95 miles as the crow flies since thousands burst across Mexico’s southernmost border six days earlier.
With the migrants still weeks, if not months, from reaching the U.S. border, the U.S. administration was planning to send 800 or more troops to the southern border at the direction of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has been stoking fears about illegal immigration ahead of the Nov. 6 midterm elections.
Defence Secretary Jim Mattis was expected to sign an order as early as Thursday authorizing the additional troops to support the Border Patrol, according to a U.S. official, who wasn’t authorized to speak about the details because they had not yet been finalized.
On Thursday, the long column of migrants stretched for more than a mile as they left the town square in Mapastepac in far southern Mexico, where many spent the night.
The municipality of some 45,000 people, along with churches and volunteers, offered some medicine and donated water, clothing baby formula and baby bottles.
As they reached the highway, families with young children packed sidewalks asking for donations and rides to the next stop, Pijijipiapan, about 25 miles further ahead.
Melkin Claros, 34, was travelling with his seven-year-old son and a teenage nephew and remained steadfast in his goal. “Everyone’s objective is to arrive (in the United States),” he said, adding that he planned to request asylum because gangs made it impossible to live in Honduras.
“It’s true you risk your life a lot here, but we risk more in our country.”
Still, Mexican officials say nearly 1,700 have dropped out of the caravan to apply for asylum in Mexico, and a few hundred have accepted government offers to bus them back to their home countries.
Carlos Roberto Hernandez, of Yoro province in Honduras, dropped out after developing a rumbling cough during the scorching daytime heat and evening rains.
“We got hit by rain, and ever since then I’ve had a cold,” Hernandez said.
Asked Wednesday if he would make another attempt to reach the U.S., he said emphatically: “No. I’m going to make my life in Honduras.”
For Pedro Arturo Torres, it appeared to be homesickness that broke his determination to reach the U.S.
“We didn’t know what lay ahead,” said Torres.
“We want to return to our country, where you can get by — even if just with beans, but you can survive, there with our families, at peace.”
The Mexican federal government’s attitude has also played a role in wearing down the caravan.
All the food, old clothes, water and medicine given to the migrants have come from private citizens, church groups or sympathetic local officials.
The federal government hasn’t given the migrants on the road a single meal, a bathroom or a bottle of water. It has reserved those only for migrants who turn themselves in at immigration offices to apply for visas or be deported.